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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308263">and your lights burning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpenny_jones/pseuds/halfpenny_jones'>halfpenny_jones</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Persona 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adoption, Autistic Sakura Futaba, Collecting Strays, Crack Treated Seriously, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Sojiro being best dad</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:35:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,417</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpenny_jones/pseuds/halfpenny_jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sojiro Sakura is an excellent dad, a passable business owner, and the most grudging collector of strays this side of Yongen-Jaya. Post-canon.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji/Takamaki Ann, Sakura Sojiro/Maruki Takuto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. comes and knocks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro’s car double-checked his personal schedule and cross-referenced all his to-do lists before dying on the hottest fucking day of the year. Having adopted a coping mechanism in the past year somewhere between internal screaming and cognitive shutdown, Sojiro dialed up the auto repair shop with the hand not holding donuts. “That sucks, my dude,” the teenage bagger said. “You got a <em>ton </em>of groceries.”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a tip for you on the hood.” Futaba had plugged in a different take-out joint for every one of his speed dials. Sojiro watched the prompt for Kinnotorikara and Udagawacho flip by as he entered the numbers and wondered if this was the hill where wallets went to die. He’d planned to cook but this day was already amounting to more of a pain than he’d agreed to when he’d rolled out of bed that morning.</p><p> </p><p>The tow truck arrived first, huffing plumes of exhaust that rippled through the waves of heat off the asphalt. After exchanging information with the driver and being assured the taxi was only a few minutes behind them, Sojiro sat on the curb next to his melting ice-cream and curdling milk to add a cigarette to the air pollution. He was down to the nub and digging in his breast pocket for another when the taxi pulled into the lot with a speed that squeaked. “Sorry I’m late,” the driver said, hopping out. “Would it be all right if I helped you with those?”</p><p> </p><p>“I can do it,” Sojiro said, but he was only barely solid matter at this point and the man had already popped the trunk to hoist in the first bag. The sun sat stubbornly overhead, shrinking the shadows under their feet to smears. “What was the hold up?”</p><p> </p><p>“There was an accident in the intersection just past the Hachiko exit. The tow truck was on the other side of it. It ground eastbound traffic for a while until they could get a lane clear. I think I actually passed your car on its way back the shop, though. It was the little yellow one, right? The Porsche?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” With his spare pack of cigarettes still under the dash, come to think of it. Sojiro flicked his cigarette nub away and tried not to give into creeping nihilism. “You swing out to Yongen-Jaya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure do. Hop in.”</p><p> </p><p>He kept the bag with the donuts and eggs with him and shoveled his steaming carcass into the backseat as the driver finished up with the trunk. Not in the mood for unnecessary conversation, he scrounged his pen out of his pocket and ripped off a corner of the bag to print his address down on it.</p><p> </p><p>The car bobbed a bit as the trunk closed. Sojiro waited until the driver was strapped in before handing the scrap up to him. “Thanks,” the driver said, thumbing it neatly up into the catch by the meter. The display still read zero.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro held his tongue, grim and waiting, but the driver ended up flicking it on as they pulled to the mouth of the lot. The fare leapt to the base fare of 380 yen, then began to tick up steadily as the driver made a right onto the road.</p><p> </p><p>Left without a lot to do besides rue his existence, Sojiro hunched down in the seat and tried to make himself unapproachable under his hat. The cooled air in the cab prickled through the sweat that had gathered under his arms and between his shoulders. “It’s been a while since I’ve swung out that far west,” the driver mused. “It’ll be nice to see the area again. Most all the requests I get are for Kichijoji and Roppongi. Oh, and Hatagaya.”</p><p> </p><p>His lower back was itching. Sojiro considered all of the stupid egg-and-donut acrobatics he’d have to pull to get to it and decided to just live with his suffering. “Hatagaya is my favorite,” the driver said. His voice was soft and unassuming, a little hoarse around the edges from what Sojiro was quickly growing to suspect was chronic overuse. “Nice and close to Shibuya and Shinjuku, but without all that foot traffic and fuss. Plus it’s only about a half hour’s walk to Yoyogi Park. I lost count of all the people I ferried to the cherry blossom festival there this spring. I wish I had a chance to go more often.”</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly exhausted, Sojiro braced his elbow on the lip of the door to massage the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. The Ohashi Medical Center smeared by his periphery at zero fucks per hour. Futaba would be wanting food from when he came home. Sojiro wasn’t even sure if the perishables in his bag were still viable. He had to take care of the soymilk and eggs first, then head down to Yongen-Jaya’s corner market to replace the ice-cream that’d sweated itself down to snot. They didn’t carry the brand she preferred, but he’d make it up to her with a cup of—</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro stilled, fingertips freezing on the bridge of his nose. He fixed an unblinking gaze at the carpet under his feet as he ran through the steps of that afternoon again. Closing the upstairs window in Akira’s room. Checking that the bathroom was clear. Flipping the sign. He remembered the chill of the key in his fingers as he’d locked the door. Had he turned off the coffee pots?</p><p> </p><p><em>Shit. </em>He tried to excavate the memory, vaguely feeling the car slow and then stop for traffic. <em>Shit shit shit. </em>The key under the third pot always squeaked when he turned it. He couldn’t remember hearing that squeak. He’d been preoccupied with finding the shopping list on the countertop.</p><p> </p><p>He could feel the driver’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror and belatedly realized the man had been speaking to him. “I’m fine,” he muttered, cramming his thumb and forefinger against his eyes under his glasses, trying to calm his racing heart. If there were signs of smoke someone would’ve already called the fire department. As long as Futaba wasn’t inside, he could survive losing the shop. Buildings could be rebuilt. In the meantime no amount of fuss here would make the traffic move faster, so ultimately he just needed to deal with his fuck-up like a man and hope he hadn’t hurt anybody with his stupidity.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just keep driving.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you forgot something at the store, I can turn back. I won’t charge.”</p><p> </p><p>The tone finally caught his attention. Glasses still hiked over his forehead, Sojiro paused. The brim of the driver’s hat and the spill of hair under it nearly hid his expression, but the sunlight had finally slid off his own lenses, allowing Sojiro to catch his eyes. “Just distracted,” Sojiro grunted, letting his glasses slip back on his nose. “Just… think I might’ve left something on heat back home is all.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Ah.</em> The old, ‘did I turn the oven off’ dilemma, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“Something like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, if it makes you feel better, you probably did turn it off,” the driver said. “But I’ll try to pick up the pace for you. Do you usually come up the main street there or the side block?”</p><p> </p><p>“Side block. Less traffic.”</p><p> </p><p>“Gotcha. I’ll take the south exit.” The man’s thumb flicked; a few moments later the car was decelerating into a gentle curve.</p><p> </p><p><em>Shit. </em>Sojiro tried not to juggle his sore knee as he ran through the possibilities ad nauseum. <em>Shit shit. </em> “You know, I couldn’t help get a pretty good look at your car while I was stopped at that intersection,” the driver said conversationally, somewhere beyond the mire of Sojiro’s anxiety. “It’s a condor Porsche 356, isn’t it? You sure don’t see many of those on the road here anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Not really all that stocked up on fat to chew at the moment, Sojiro debated blowing the question off. In the end another expectant glance in the mirror forced his hand, and he relented, albeit tersely, “Looks like you know your cars.”</p><p> </p><p>“Naw, not me. Not really. That one’s just a classic, that’s all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not many people know it by sight.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s straight out of the 1960s, isn’t it? My uncle used to talk about how those things would purr down a straight road. Great acceleration. A little crotchety as they aged, though.”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s an old girl,” Sojiro conceded gruffly. “Probably just ought to take her out back to the shed and put her out of her misery at this point.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver slanted him another smile in the rearview mirror. “You don’t sound too enthusiastic about that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Just one of those things. Everything dies eventually.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know the owners of the Shinzaki garage pretty well. We’re partnered with them and give them our exclusive business when our cars need maintenance. He’s passionate about his work. If he didn’t feel pretty confident about your car, he’d have told you outright.”</p><p> </p><p>“Just because something <em>can </em>be fixed doesn’t mean it should be. I got mouths to feed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Isn’t part of a car’s function to deliver food to hungry mouths?” But the driver laughed. The road continued to hum under them, interlocking lines and lights that flickered in his periphery. “I get what you’re saying. I remember how irrationally hard I fought to keep my little grey Suzuki Fronte on the road way back when. I ended up having to give it away to a restoration enthusiast because I couldn’t financially keep up with the upkeep, but at least I knew she was in loving hands. I won’t lie, though – it cut deep to see her go. I’m glad you’re getting to hang onto yours.”</p><p> </p><p>… all of that had almost definitely been a deliberate distraction. Kind of put out that he’d been read so easily, Sojiro stared out the window and wondered if he should clam up on principle or just go ahead and admit to himself that even in the middle of a possibly life-altering fiery fuck-up, he really, really liked talking about cars.</p><p> </p><p>Talking about cars won. Sojiro tore his gaze back. “Had a pretty rare one yourself. Family heirloom?”</p><p> </p><p>“Something like that. It was my uncle’s project. He called her ‘Jouchan’.”</p><p> </p><p>“He didn’t want her back?”</p><p> </p><p>“He died a while ago, unfortunately. Another reason it was so hard to give her up – taking care of her was one of my last promises I made to him. I really did try my best, but it was either give her to a loving owner or starve.”</p><p> </p><p>Elbow on the door handle, index finger crooked vaguely against his mouth as he thought, Sojiro huffed out an involuntary chuckle against it. “Does get to the point it feels like they’re stealing food from your mouth.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I mean I actually did… literally almost starve,” the driver said. He sounded sheepish. “I was persuaded by one of my professors to sell her after I passed out during a presentation. He said he’d help me out, but only if I promised to stop sinking money into the car. It was kind of… do or die at that point. But yours, though! <em>That’s </em>the real treasure, sentimentality or not. They just don’t make them like that anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the truth. Can’t say I’ve ever been willing to die for her though.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver met his eyes again in the rearview mirror, expression merry. “Does she have a name?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t stickshift and tell.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver’s surprised laugh was the flight of a sparrow. From then on he kept his eyes on the road; an exit later his fingers flicked up to nudge the turn signal, and once again they were sloping towards Yongen-Jaya.</p><p> </p><p>His panic had slipped into a vague resignation. Reluctantly thankful for the distraction, Sojiro took the silence to retreat a bit, forcing his attention back out the window so he could collect his thoughts. <em>I should call. </em>His fingers itched for his phone. Only hard-won grizzled practicality kept it in his pocket. At this point he’d get there about the same time she would. If the café was in flames he didn’t want her to see it. “Here we are,” the driver said presently, turning onto the street with a sharpness that had Sojiro’s elbow slipping off the handle. “How about you hop out real quick and check. I’ll wait.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’ll be fine.” But he was already unbuckling his seatbelt, craning his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of any smoke. “It’s the café up the street a bit further. Stop at the crossing.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver passed by his house and came to a terse halt just short of the walk. Sojiro only barely registered the passersby on the sidewalk as he fumbled for the door. “I’ll wait,” the driver said, hitting the button to stop the meter.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro hit the pavement at a clumsy jog, mindlessly lugging the donuts and eggs. Nothing was in flames as he passed by old Ayako’s apartment complex and muttered a greeting to the officer on duty. Leblanc stood empty and quiet as he fussed his way up to the door, setting the bag aside and digging for his key.</p><p> </p><p>It met no resistance whatsoever when it turned in the lock. Stomach flipping for a different reason, Sojiro bulldozed his way in the unlocked door and was met with a colorful explosion of sticky notes goddamn everywhere. Rainbow patterns on his wall, his bathroom door, on the floor, waving on the edge of the tables.</p><p> </p><p>He took a step forward and was promptly smacked with a chain of them dangling from the ceiling. He sent a cursory glance over to the unlit pots, then peeled the nearest purple sticky note off the chain. <em>You totes left them on, </em>Futaba’s writing said. <em>You owe me sooooo much curry.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>He walked back outside and nearly tripped over the driver as the man finished settling half of Sojiro’s bags for him on the stoop. “You didn’t have to do that.” Frazzled, not sure if he felt irritated or relieved enough to vomit, Sojiro tried to regain some of his dignity he’d dropped in Shinjuku. “What do I owe you?”</p><p> </p><p>“The total came to 640 yen. You’ve got a note on your elbow. Were the pots off?”</p><p> </p><p>“My daughter took care of it.” Sojiro peeled it off and slapped it without looking onto a brick behind him. His squashed wallet yielded a forest of lint and about half of what he needed, which made about as much sense as any of the half-dozen other pains that’d manifested in his ass that day. “Wait here while I get,” he began, then gnashed his teeth together when the Leblanc business line behind him rang. “For god’s sake.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right.”</p><p> </p><p>“What a day.” He pushed what he had into the man’s hand. “Let me go in and get the difference. <em>Don’t go anywhere</em>. And I can handle the rest of my bags.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not a problem. Go ahead and answer the phone. Take your time.”</p><p> </p><p>He nearly tripped over the inside mat when another chain of attached sticky notes bapped him on the eyeball. He answered the call and mentally flailed through a shipping order while simultaneously flailing one-handed under the bar for his cash box. The cord caught his elbow on the way back up and nearly dragged the unit off the bar in transit.</p><p> </p><p>By the time he got back outside, the rest of his groceries were arranged in a neat pile to the left of the welcome mat. The sticky note he’d taken off earlier was folded neatly to the side of the bags. Sojiro brushed the sun from his eyes with an upturned wrist and glared in the direction of the road, but the taxi was gone.</p><p> </p><p>He ripped off the note and held it to sunlight. <em>The rest is on me. Hope your luck perks up from here.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>He stepped forward to get a better look at the road and felt something crunch under his heel.</p><p> </p><p>… he added eggs back onto the list.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Futaba cooked a dinner that could’ve fed six kings and several of their horses. “I’m still not buying you a dog,” Sojiro said.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s a baseless and tacky assumption,” Futaba said. She had a smear of <em>shoyu</em> on her nose and it was taking everything in his power not to get his camera. “Please sit down at this extravagantly decorated table, oh honored father. I hope the accoutrements are to your liking.”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s with the candle? What’s with <em>both </em>candles?”</p><p> </p><p>“One is coconut and one is verbena, so you can pretend you’re sitting on a luxurious beach overlooking the sea of my many, many needs,” Futaba said. “You want me to import an actual beach or what? I didn’t raise you to be this spoiled. Also, you <em>reeeeeally </em>aren’t giving me the kudos I deserve for basically saving our entire livelihood, you know.”</p><p> </p><p>“I already said thank you.” Sojiro slipped a bit as he folded himself under the table and accidentally inhaled the smoke straight into the smallest crevices of his bronchii. The <em>shoyu </em>pork looked professionally edible but that was no surprise. She’d had no skill in the kitchen two weeks ago and that meant nothing. She had almost certainly downloaded the world’s entire culinary library directly into her brain last night just to fuck with him. “What I could’ve done without was the forty-seven sticky notes slapped all over my café. It would’ve been easier to put out a fire.”</p><p> </p><p>“Inari says the best rescues are the ones done with pizzazz. Not all pets have to have fur, by the way,” she said. “Some have feathers and some have scales and all are adorable. How dare you think I’m speciesist enough to discriminate.”</p><p> </p><p>“Futaba, I can’t take care of a pet.”</p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t be taking care of it. <em>I would. </em>With my oodles of responsibility. Did you know I have oodles? It’s why I made noodles. So I could be responsible <em>and </em>rhyme.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>We can’t afford a pet. </em>What would we even feed it? I’m barely keeping you alive as it is.”</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno, I think we’re doing pretty okay.” Spectrum-child as she was, Futaba stunned him by embracing him from behind, albeit a little clumsily, before hurrying over to her side of the table with bare little scurrying feet. He could count on one hand the number of times she’d initiated physical contact with him in the past month. “Not enough for a pony but def enough for a cat,” she added, mouth already full. He hadn’t even seen her put food in her mouth. It had probably teleported there out of fear. “Or maybe a parakeet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said, none of the above.” His face was hot. Sojiro cleared his throat and tried to take the victory casually so he wouldn’t spook her into holding back in the future. “Things’re tight as it is, Futaba. We’re doing okay, but now that that damned car’s gone out from under me—”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, what?” Her fork froze halfway to her mouth. “Didn’t you drive home? You brought a ton of groceries.”</p><p> </p><p>“My car died in the lot of the store. I took a taxi home while the old girl got towed to the shop. My point is—”</p><p> </p><p>“You were in a car? With a <em>stranger?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“What, you wanted me to walk on the highway? It’s damp as an armpit outside anyway.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Sojiro.</em>” Futaba’s fork dropped to the plate with a clatter. “You mean you just hopped into some stranger’s car <em>willingly?</em> Like some gullible toddler on the hunt for candy?”</p><p> </p><p>He coughed a laugh into his bowl, startled. “<em>I’m serious,</em>” Futaba said. She looked deeply disappointed in him and it was hilarious. He couldn’t stand it. “That’s like the prime stuff of horror films. What if he’d had a hook? Or poison-tipped claws? Or biohazardous B.O?”</p><p> </p><p>“B.O?”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Body odor. </em>Scents can kill, you know. <em>Silently</em>. He could’ve been waging biological warfare on you the entire time. You could be a zombie right now for all I know.”</p><p> </p><p>Well. He considered this information as he patted his mouth on his napkin. She did have a point. “You know, come to think of it, I <em>have </em>been feeling a little off-color since I came home.”</p><p> </p><p>Futaba’s face lost a shade. “What kind of off-color?”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought it was just me, but now that you mention it—”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, like… like <em>shambling </em>off-color? Green pustules? Oozing feet? Dripping skin?”</p><p> </p><p>“A little like I kind of might want to try some brains. You ever get the hankering for brains? Weirdest sensation, but I feel like maybe the customers would like it if I started serving brains.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Back, foul demon.</em>” Futaba grabbed her fork for protection and scrambled up away from him. “I rid you of your control of this man! <em>Samerecarm!</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro took the opportunity to spear the last <em>shoyu-</em>soaked sliver of boiled egg off her plate. “Hey!” Futaba lunged back to rescue her plate from his dead decaying zombie hand of misery and plague. “I was saving that bite for last, you filthy desecrator! We’re broke now! It’s gonna be forever until we can get more!”</p><p> </p><p>“The car’ll be fine and so will we,” Sojiro dismissed, mouth full, portioning off more vegetables off his plate onto hers to even out the lopsided distribution. “It’ll make a dent, though. I’ll have to ask you to tighten your belt a little bit with the electronics this month. I’ll make it up to you later.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, because at least <em>words </em>are cheap.” Fuming, Futaba pointedly reached over his half-hearted barricade and stole a slice of pork in retribution. She wriggled her fork at him, serious suddenly as an owl behind her oversized glasses. “Call me next time. You could’ve been in seriously mortal peril and I never would’ve known. That’s not fair. You make me call when I go out and stuff.”</p><p> </p><p>“All right, all right.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sojiro. Seriously.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know.” Sojiro squinted at his bowl, warm again. He had to clear his throat. “I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>Futaba watched him, popping a sliver of green onion in her mouth to chew it with concentration. It was a minute before she spoke again. “When do you get Clarisse back?”</p><p> </p><p>“Dunno yet. They’ll give me a call. I got the groceries home, though, and we can use the mart in walking distance for anything I forgot. I just won’t be able to swing out to Shinjuku to pick up your ice-cream for a while.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s fine.” Futaba waved it all away with gracious and queenly pity for his shortcomings. “That’s what internet shopping is for. You know you can get the same blast of dopamine from bingeing online shopping as you can eating crappy food? Splurging triggers the ‘reward’ process in the brain. It’s why it’s so addictive. Now that I know I can get just as much of a rush throwing money at things that I can when I’m stuffing myself full of delicious ice-cream, I can totally expand my risk-reward catalogue. Neurochemistry is great.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re in an awfully good mood,” Sojiro said, choosing to ignore all of that for sanity-related reasons. “You rob a bank today or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“You say that like I’m functionally incapable of robbing said bank, and that makes me real sad,” Futaba said. “Nope, something better. You remember the thing I was working on with my mom’s foundation? How I was looking for donors and all that? Look at this.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro set his fork down as she slapped a dog-eared notebook page over. “You remember how I was applying for that grant?” Futaba asked. “Well, I checked out sorts of ones. Federal, institutional, that sort of thing. Because I’m a minor, I had to bounce it up to a representative, but it turns out the woman had an in in the community. She found a donor!”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you serious?” Incredulous, Sojiro scanned the rows of numbers and the circled name at the bottom peppered with roughly thirty exclamation marks. “Did you just hear about this today?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yep.” Futaba took it back proudly. “Not gonna lie, it was sort of completely terrifying to talk on the phone with a bunch of strangers, but when I remembered it was all for my mom, I sort of just… found the courage already there. Anyway, Koda-san said they’re going to work on securing a more public donor. Mom’s field was cognitive psience, but it turns out she did a lot of umbrella work too for neuro-stabilizers as well. You know, for depression and cognitive disorders and all that. So she got pretty well known in the psychiatric and pharmaceutical circles. They’re thinking about publishing some of the lesser-known studies so more people could see the advancements she made. Once that happens, Koda-san thinks it’ll be easy to set up a scholarship in her name.”</p><p> </p><p>“Futaba, that’s…” A little helpless, Sojiro had to try a few times to speak. “That’s wonderful. I know how important this was to you. I’m so proud of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, the work’s not done yet. There’s a lot of steps. Just… I’m glad I could do this much myself, you know? Even with Akira not here with me. I really wanted to show the others I could navigate myself too, not just them.” Futaba tucked back into her meal, pointing at him again with her fork as her cheek puffed. “And that doesn’t let you off the hook either, mister. I <em>fully </em>plan to get more people on board the ‘save Leblanc’ train. Now that I know I can pirate money in a totally legal way, I may or may not become a monster in your midst. Fair warning.”</p><p> </p><p>“Leblanc doesn’t need to be saved.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe not monetarily, but definitely aesthetically. I want chandeliers and escalators and those tiny useless little silver utensils you always see those rich people in movies using. Aaaand—” Futaba waggled her fork at him. “<em>And </em>if it just so happens to turn out that the venerable Sakura Sojiro was tight with the renowned Ishiki Wakaba, can you imagine the uptick in traffic once this grant gains public traction? We’ll totally have to blow out the wall and add more seats. It’ll be pandemonium. Just oodles and oodles of dough. Like my oodles and oodles of responsibility. For owning a pet.”</p><p> </p><p>“Very good,” Sojiro said. “The thread nearly got lost in there, but you pulled it around by the end.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll keep working on it.” Futaba stuffed her forkful into her mouth. “Just you watch. I’ll be the cutest monster you know.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro distracted the cutest monster he knew from her piracy with the cheap ice-cream he’d picked up at the corner mart. After he’d settled her down with her laptop in front of a documentary on zebras, he washed the dishes and tried not to think about all the things Wakaba was missing. It was a long list.</p><p> </p><p><em>What kind of monster would you have raised. </em>He fed the towel through the handle of the refrigerator and made up a pot of coffee, leaning over the back of the couch to watch when Futaba frantically waved him over to see the baby zebras. One way or another it was impossible to tell whether or not Futaba’s quirks would’ve manifested under Wakaba’s influence. It was possible she would’ve been well-adjusted enough to attend Shujin for her first year, but also possible that her anxiety would’ve ultimately been triggered by something else. Either way Sojiro had had to deal with the unflattering certainty that no matter how far down he crammed those traitorous thoughts, he knew his life would be objectively worse if Futaba had remained someone else’s child.</p><p> </p><p><em>How deep down, </em>he thought, obediently leaning forward when Futaba tugged at his sleeve with excitement, <em>into hell am I going to be sent for profiting off your loss. </em>It’d probably be pretty deep. Maybe he’d get lucky enough to encounter a fellow hell-bound cab driver to shorten the trip.</p><p> </p><p>… and speaking of goddamned cars.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The repair shop called to deliver a laundry list of very expensive and not at all out of their ass diagnoses. Sojiro blanked out somewhere between <em>fuel pump </em>and <em>ignition coil </em>and came crashing back onto the planet around the time the mechanic started shooting off estimates. “That seems like a lot.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I mean, we can fix half of them for half the price, but you’ll just end up coming back for the other half within the week.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t you have any discounts? I’m an ex-governmental official, you know. Isn’t there some kind of discount for government workers?”</p><p> </p><p>They gave him a coupon for 500 yen off his next oil change and a code for a free drink at the Triple Seven convenience store. After giving the coupon to Futaba and also making her promise not to send them into catastrophic debt today by feeding her newfound dopamine addiction, he went to the café to ponder the humiliation of a tip jar. He’d traveled enough overseas during his government days to have a grasp on the concept, but something about it had always left a weird taste in his mouth. Good service paid for itself with repeat customers. Asking for added handouts felt too much like begging.</p><p> </p><p>Still. Sojiro immersed himself in the needs of his next three customers and tried not to think about the needs over his own head. He maybe needed to beg. There was a nice ceramic pot one of his elderly customers had given him last year. It was tame enough to fit with the décor but pretty enough to attract a second glance.</p><p> </p><p><em>Fuck it. </em>He pulled out the wad of Futaba’s sticky notes, found one that wasn’t scribbled on, wrote TIPS on it, and shoved it out onto the edge of his counter before he could change his mind. Either it’d come to something or it wouldn’t. As long as no one used it as an ashtray or an anonymous complaint box, he figured it’d probably be a net positive.</p><p> </p><p>Akira texted him just as he was finishing cleaning out his refrigerator. Busy grinding the beans to prepare for his usual cranky evening crowd, Sojiro opened it with one hand as he kept half an eye on his task. The picture attachment took a moment to load. When it did he was treated to the sight of Morgana on a chair with a very handsome little yellow scarf and matching hat. <em>Cute, </em>Sojiro texted. <em>You make that yourself?</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>I’m starting a business. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The next picture loaded with the same delay. It was a full array of tiny matching scarves and hats, along with fabric collars. Tiny bells were attached to half of them. <em>I’d like to make them for dogs too, but I can’t find one that will give me honest critique, </em>Akira said. <em>Dogs don’t talk as much as cats.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Let’s see the pink one.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The reply was slower in coming. Sojiro finished grinding the Columbia Narino beans and leaned his hip against the counter to watch as the news switched to the weather report. When the phone pinged he looked down to see Morgana, halfway between smug good looks and strained patience, modeling the pink bell collar and the adorable poofy hat. <em>I’ve sold three sets so far to the women in my mother’s book club, </em>Akira said. <em>I just learned how to knit last week, so it’s slow going, but by next week I plan to move up to sweaters and cardigans. </em></p><p>
  
</p><p>Sojiro felt something throb a little in his head. These mutants. What was in the water to create these mutants. He’d slid his phone into his pocket and was about to move on with his life of willful blindness when he remembered at the last minute.</p><p> </p><p>He pulled it back out. <em>What did you eat today.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Breakfast and lunch. Dinner pending.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Tell me what you ate, kid.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>This time the pause was longer.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro left it on the countertop. He passed by the tip jar on the way to dump out the handful of spilled grounds and stopped when he spotted a gleam at the bottom. His split-second of hope vanished when he saw it was a discarded tinfoil candy wrapper.</p><p> </p><p>He fished it out and was about to toss it when he spotted writing scribbled on the inside. He smoothed it out to read it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Try hiring a cuter barista.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>On the other hand he was relieved to have been spared the humiliation of charity. On the other hand one of his customers was clearly fucking with him and it’d taken him too long to discover it, so now he didn’t know whose curry to dump extra black pepper and stale coffee grounds into.</p><p> </p><p>Akira texted back. Sojiro glanced at it on his way to the trash bin. The meat was a blackened lump the size of his fist and looked like it’d been worked over by several commuter trains. “<em>I can send it to you if you want it,</em>” Akira said, picking up on the third ring. “<em>I hid it in my room and ate krunky wafers instead.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Would you please call the cops or something?” Sojiro snapped. “That’s child abuse.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>They’re just angry I don’t give them anything to pick at anymore. If I don’t complain, they can’t complain that I’m complaining.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“If they’re starving you over there—”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>They don’t care enough to starve me. I’m all right, Boss. I know how to take care of myself.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not supposed to have to take care of yourself.” A strange, helpless, hypocritical anger was tightening the knot in his stomach. “You want me to send stuff your way, I can. Just say the word.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>It’s fine, I promise. There’s just frustrated and bored things don’t play out with me like they used to.</em>” There was a brief scuffle and a murmur. “<em>Morgana wants to say hello.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Clamping down his impatience with the diversion, Sojiro listened to a solid fifty-seven seconds of incomprehensible cat noises. “<em>Do you need any of that repeated?</em>” Akira asked. “<em>He stutters when he gets excited.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’ve been, uh,” Sojiro said. He closed his eyes and thumbed his forehead a moment. “I’ve been brushing up. Tell him I say ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘maybe in another year’.”</p><p> </p><p>He heard Akira stifle a startled laugh over the sound of Morgana’s frustrated yowl, and the sound was so wonderful that Sojiro felt a different knot tighten nearly to breaking. “Kid,” he said. “Look, why don’t you just come back, huh? I’ll weather the legal end. I’ve done it before. I’ll just have to think of something.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I don’t think they’ll go for it as easily now that I came out top of my class last year. They’ve got bragging rights now.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“They can still brag. Just… over there.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I need them to think it’s their own idea or they’ll never go through with it. I’m their only son.</em> <em>Whether they like me or resent me, it’s always good to have a son in your pocket to pay the bills later. They’re too smart to want to give that up no matter how much trouble I cause.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t cause trouble.” That was a lie. Sojiro pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t cause trouble that merits abuse.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>They’re just neglectful. Boss, it’s fine,</em>” Akira said. “<em>Maybe a year ago it would’ve been a different story, but with everything I’ve seen… I’d take too little attention over too much of the wrong kind of attention.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Then how about just letting me talk to them. Maybe I can, I dunno. Straighten some things out. Dust out some cobwebs.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I don’t think they’ll listen. They’re already confused why you care so much about someone else’s kid.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro let in a breath, let it out. “Because you’re not someone else’s kid.”</p><p> </p><p>The pause was very long.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro imagined Akira’s slouch and the irritating shine off his glasses. There’d be no expression whatsoever on his face because the kid didn’t know how the fuck to emote on a normal timetable. His neural processes rattled around in there more than a pachinko parlor. “<em>Thanks, Boss,</em>” Akira said softly.</p><p> </p><p>Time to wrap it up before he said something stupid. He could compartmentalize later. “You keep your nose clean over there, you hear? We’ll keep working on this.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Got it.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro hung up. Akira called back. “<em>Do you want me to make you a human-sized pink set?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“No.” Sojiro hung up.</p><p> </p><p>A minute later he texted back. <em>Sure. Ditch the bell. </em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The car cost 124,600 yen to fix. Sojiro blew gaskets quietly into his sink next to his soapy dishes and calculated which body part he needed to lop off to pay for this. In terms of raw numbers it still made more sense to doctor her up than it did to throw in for a new car that’d probably fuck him over in newer, less creative ways, but that wasn’t the point. Sentimentality had a price tag and so did raising a kid.</p><p> </p><p>He withdrew the money and called up the taxi service to drive him to the repair shop. He stood outside the house on the edge of the adjacent street as Futaba peppered him with a barrage of texts detailing what large animals she expected to consume for dinner. <em>How about radishes, </em>he typed.</p><p> </p><p>The replies came back with the speed of witchcraft. <em>Animals consume vegetables and therefore I am consuming vegetables by consuming them.</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>How about turnips. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She sent a picture of a his at-home coffee pot and one of the kitchen knives pointed at it menacingly. <em>Two vegetables, </em>Sojiro said firmly. <em>Or no curry for three days. </em></p><p> </p><p>The wait was long and sullen. Sojiro was angling his hat to block out the spill of the sun as the taxi split away from the lazy stream of traffic to approach him. A thump from the window had him glancing up over his shoulder just before he let himself in. The scribble she held up to the glass was a leek drawn with Akira’s hair and a bell pepper drawn with Sojiro’s beard. <em>I’m going in there, </em>Sojiro mouthed, pointed exaggeratedly at the taxi.</p><p> </p><p>He received a finger that he probably needed to punish her for later. “Thanks,” Sojiro grunted as he lowered himself into the backseat of the car. He relished the feeling of his wallet digging into his asscheek, knowing it was about to get plenty slim enough to disappear over the next hour. He handed up the piece of paper with the name and address of the repair place, and the driver angled it neatly into the catch by the meter. “Traffic give you trouble on the way here? Heard the exit was a mess with commuter traffic this morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nope, clear as a mountain spring,” the driver said. He was adjusting the rearview mirror as he spoke, checking the street behind them in preparation to pull out. “Got everything? I can wait if you need to check your coffee.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I’m—” In the act of swiping his wrist under the brim of his hat to collect sweat, Sojiro blinked up at the front seat.</p><p> </p><p>The driver aimed a sheepish smile into the rearview mirror.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s you,” Sojiro said, still blankly. Then he rallied and scowled. “Now <em>look here</em>. I got a bone to pick with you, kid.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>There’s </em>a qualifier I haven’t heard in a while,” the driver from the other day said with a sputtering, genuine laugh. “Must be my excellent skin-care routine, right? Seriously though, I can wait if you need to check. No charge.”</p><p> </p><p>“No charge my ass, you—” He could still see Futaba in the window. Fuming, Sojiro roughly ground down on his tongue and buckled himself in with rough jerks. “Pots are fine. Just step on it already.”</p><p> </p><p>“Can do.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro managed to maintain a neutrally non-homicidal expression up until the point they crested onto the main street. The driver’s own hat was angled up a bit higher today, revealing a heavy fringe of hair sideswept over the top of his glasses. There was faint stubble angled along the bottom of his chin. He was as prodigiously careful as he’d been the previous ride, checking left and right and left again before each turn despite the fact it was a one-way drag. “Now, before you get too wound up,” the driver began.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh I’m <em>already – </em>now you listen here.” Sojiro cleared his vision and jammed a finger towards him. “I don’t need charity and I don’t like being condescended to. I told you to <em>wait</em>—”</p><p> </p><p>“You were so busy juggling all the business in the store and with your car, I thought—”</p><p> </p><p>“You were supposed to park yourself at that door and keep the meter running so I could pay you for your extra time and tip you for bringing in the groceries. Just what kind of business are you guys running, anyway?”</p><p> </p><p>“What kind of…” The man sounded lost. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“If you’re going to bother to go through all that extra effort, at least stick around so the client can square up. You think I don’t know that came out of your own pocket? It made me feel like a damned crook. I almost called the agency up so they’d send me the bill.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re angry because I didn’t try harder to chisel money from you<em>?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“You call getting fair compensation for your work chiseling?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I—” the driver seemed to honestly flounder. “I just thought maybe it’d be welcome.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just the way you looked, is all.”</p><p> </p><p>“It <em>looked </em>like I wanted to rip you off?”</p><p> </p><p>“It looked like you didn’t need any more hard knocks,” the driver said softly.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro had been halfway into the next barrage. The defeated tone sucked the wind out of his sails. The driver’s eyes were still on the road, both hands on the wheel, but Sojiro could see his knuckles had gone white. His shoulders had curved inwards a bit as if bracing against a strong headwind. “I certainly didn’t do it to upset you,” the driver murmured. “If I did, I’m truly sorry. I thought it’d make you feel better. Please forgive me for my presumption.”</p><p> </p><p>… that hadn’t gone at all like he’d thought it’d go. Suddenly ashamed and more than a little confused, Sojiro subsided and dropped his scowl down into his lap. The meter ticked by audibly on the dash as they left Yongen-Jaya proper.</p><p> </p><p>… come to think of it, Futaba had side-eyed him that day too when he’d shouldered his way home with all those groceries. He’d sweat through his shirt and his hat hadn’t had a broad enough brim to protect the back of his neck from sunburn. He’d been flushed from the heat index nearly up until dinner and it’d taken two extra glasses of water to get his stomach to settle back down after his evening coffee. Laden with groceries and fumbling like a geezer with his wallet had probably completed the illusion of a man on his last rope.</p><p> </p><p>All his residual anger collapsed into embarrassment. Sojiro rubbed his forehead between the vise of his thumb and forefinger and tried to figure out a way to climb out of the trench of dickery he’d dug himself into.</p><p> </p><p>He eventually realized the driver was watching him as they stopped for a pedestrian crossing; when Sojiro met his eyes in the mirror, the driver’s flinched away immediately. “So.” The driver spoke with paler but determined cheer. “I’ll bet you’re happy to get your girl back, huh? You know, I’ve been burning with curiosity over her name ever since we talked about her. I kept thinking about what my uncle would’ve called her if he’d had a car with that bright coloring. I’m sure he would’ve had a blast talking with Shinzaki about it. It’s a shame they never met.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro wasn’t dumb enough not to recognize a charitable out when he saw one. Now that he was bending attention to it, he could hear that the hoarseness he’d picked up in the driver’s voice last time was more pronounced, swallowing up some of the vowels and necessitating a swallow at the end of his sentences. The knuckles on his thin-boned hands shuffled prominently under the skin as his hands flexed around the wheel.</p><p> </p><p>The conversation about cars and starving came back to him. Sojiro frowned at the back of the driver’s head. “For you to be picking it up so quick, I guess her wounds weren’t too mortal, huh?” the driver said. “I told you Shinzaki was honest. I bet he had a great time working on a classic like that. He gets bored with the cabs.”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t get your name last time.” Sojiro was gruff but his remorse was genuine. He once again forced himself to meet the driver’s eyes in the mirror, this time holding them. “I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. I do appreciate a good turn. Just… took it wrong. I’m sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, please don’t,” the driver said. “I see now it was presumptuous. Um, my name should be on the back there. And you can always call into the agency for verification if you’re ever unsure.”</p><p> </p><p>There was an enlarged scan of the driver’s license and business registration number encased behind a thin sheet of plexiglass on the back of the front passenger seat. The man on it had mousy windswept hair and eyes haunted enough to have come from a ship’s graveyard. Sojiro peered at it, but it looked as though some brat had gone to town on it with a permanent marker. “All I can make out is Maru.”</p><p> </p><p>“You got it in one! Nice work.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maru,” Sojiro said.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a family name. I know, some kid got it really good back there, didn’t they? Sorry about that. I keep forgetting to ask the agency to replace it.”</p><p> </p><p>There was roughly about a two percent chance the name was Maru and a one hundred-seventy percent chance the guy was fucking with him. The registration number was fully intact however, as was the agency’s seal, and the phone number to check in on credentials was visible in red, and anyway that had been the final confirmation Sojiro needed to connect the dots. Sojiro knew, without a lot of ceremony and with a lot of terrible finality, where he’d heard that breathless flutter of laughter before.</p><p> </p><p>A too-brusque braking brought his attention up. “Sorry,” the driver sighed immediately. He’d stopped at the red light behind another vehicle. As Sojiro watched, the driver finally hiked up his own glasses and massaged his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. The bones of his wrist jutted as much as his knuckles.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro was torn away from his indecision when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He sent another glance to the man before answering it. “Sakura.”</p><p> </p><p>The sounds of a garage immediately greeted his eardrum by stabbing it. “<em>Am I speaking to Sakura Sojiro, the owner of the yellow Porsche 356?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Unfortunately,” Sojiro said, half an eye on the front as the car began accelerating again. “What’s the matter? I’m on my way.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>The boss just found an issue with the gas line. Looks like a rodent’s been chewing on it. He says he can’t in good conscience send you home in it today.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“The drive—” Sojiro nearly herniated. “I just said I’m already on my way!”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>He’s sorry he didn’t catch it earlier, but he’s firm on it. He says since it was something he dropped, he’ll slash the cost. He’ll comp the taxi too.</em>”</p><p> </p><p><em>Son of a— </em>Freshly aware of how his temper splattered on undeserving targets, Sojiro forced himself to take a very deep breath. “<em>Again, we’re very sorry,</em>” the worker said. “<em>Do you want to speak to him yourself?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s all right,” Sojiro said gruffly. “Tell him it’s fine. Just… make sure to really look it over this time. And I’ll pay full price for the damned line.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>He’s already discounted it on the invoice. It should be ready in a day or two. We’ll give you another call when it’s off the rack.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>For fuck’s sake. “Trouble?” the driver asked after Sojiro hung up.</p><p> </p><p>“The idiot says they found something they’d missed before. Gas line. Take another day or two to get it patched.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, no.” The driver’s distress was genuine. “That’s a shame. I’m sorry you got dragged all the way out here for nothing.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>You </em>got dragged over for nothing.” Comped his ass. Sojiro was pissed but not that pissed. “You mind turning around somewhere up here? I’ll still pay you for your trouble.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, it’s all right. Better that they found it now instead of having it fail you on the way home, right?”</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t generally tune into rainbow-and-unicorn frequency, but the driver’s tone was earnest. “Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>“Let me just duck into a parking lot. We’ll get you home in no time.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro chewed on his vast wealth of petty inconveniences as the driver made the arrangements to reverse their trajectory. Futaba would be disappointed, but mostly on account of the fact he wasn’t going to be out of the house as long as she’d predicted. Whatever shenanigans she’d programmed into her schedule, credit card debt included, would have to be deferred while he scrounged up backup vegetables to cram down her gullet. “You mind swinging by my café instead? Figure I might as well open up a few hours if I’m not getting my car.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not a problem.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro braced his elbow on the door handle again as he rested his cheek against his knuckle. <em>Extra time.</em> This wasn’t ideal but maybe it was a sign. Seeing as he’d already balanced his books for the week and done the shopping, this was as good a time as any to check in with his contacts about Akira’s adoption.</p><p> </p><p><em>Sure, one more heaping on my plate. </em>Try as he might, Sojiro couldn’t bring himself to begrudge the trouble. Akira was seventeen – well over the minimum age for <em>mukoyoshi. </em>Sojiro preferred not to wait until he was the age of majority, but in the end red tape was just tape. Futaba already regarded Akira as a brother and Sojiro had already made concessions in his will. If he could pull enough strings for Akira to spend his third year of high school with a family that cared about him – well. Those’d be strings worth pulling.</p><p> </p><p>Another sudden stop nearly knocked his knuckle up his nose. “Hey,” he snapped before he could help himself, tearing himself away from the door. “You asleep or something?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry.” They were at a red light again, closer than Sojiro would’ve preferred to the bumper of a Subaru. The driver was massaging the bridge of his nose again, hiking up his glasses to get to his sinuses. His dark eyes were shadowed but attentive on the light overhead.</p><p> </p><p>Alerted now, Sojiro watched. It took a handful of seconds for the man’s hand to drop. When it did it was only to cup over his mouth, firm and contemplative under his unblinking gaze. He was very pale. “You all right?” Sojiro said.</p><p> </p><p>The driver started. He angled another smile in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, lost in thought.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro saw the light turn blue. The car gently accelerated, and once again the driver was utterly focused on the road. Sojiro waited for him to continue his chatter and realized belatedly that the driver had been silent since they had turned around.</p><p> </p><p><em>Good. </em>Sojiro tried not to feel one way or another about that. He let his gaze trail back out the window but this time kept his attention on the traffic. For the rest of the short trip the driver was exceptionally careful, braking gently and turning like he was carting a car full of eggs.</p><p> </p><p>As they approached Leblanc’s street, Sojiro stirred to lean forward. He tapped the driver’s shoulder and gestured. “Want you to park up there.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?” Clearly having been about to angle along the side street as before, the driver jumped a bit under the direction. “Didn’t you want to go to your café?”</p><p> </p><p>“Like you to park first. It’s up the road to your left – the parking garage across the corner from Leblanc. I have a long-term permit for a spot on the first level.”</p><p> </p><p>There was the barest breath of hesitation, but the driver complied. Sojiro fumbled for his wallet and opened it up to the clear panel holding his card. “Scan this,” he said, handing it up, and the driver obeyed with only minor fumbling. “And step on it once the arm goes up. The window’s short.”</p><p> </p><p>The striped bar rose, and Sojiro again leaned forward over the middle hump to direct him. Midday found the first level of the garage deceptively empty, but Sojiro knew from firsthand pain-in-the-assery how packed it became once the dinner rush hour hit. “Over by the pillar, right next to the stairwell,” he said, and settled back with satisfaction when the driver carefully angled the car in. “Nice work.”</p><p> </p><p>“You really have some prime parking here,” the driver said, glancing up to the rearview mirror a last time to ensure they were centered. “You must have paid for this in blood.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was on a waiting list for months – way up on the third level. Before me was some hotshot business executive that moved in closer to Shinjuku. There’s about a dozen people after me still waiting to get down to street level.”</p><p>                               </p><p>“Third level, huh? That must’ve been tough with all those groceries.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro didn’t have to be carrying anything down three flights of stairs for his knees to bitch at him. At least the main entrance to the garage was facing the main street so Sojiro’s street was spared the brunt of the commuting noise. “Come on,” he grunted, letting himself out before the driver could shut off the car. “Keep the meter running if you want.”</p><p> </p><p>“Did you need help?” The driver thumbed it off anyway, hastily fumbling to open his own door once he saw Sojiro was leaving. “Is everything all right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Come with me for a bit.” He’d forgotten even in the short time he’d been in the cab just how hot it was. Still in the shade of the garage, Sojiro still squinted as the blast of it hit his eyes, blinking a bit to clear the dust the tires had churned up. He tented his hand over his eyes in preparation to meet the sun as he turned to the driver. “You can lock this thing up, right?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” the driver said, but slowly. He’d risen to his full height to rest his palm against the top of the car. “Is there something you needed help with?”</p><p> </p><p>“Balancing the scales. C’mon.” Sojiro started walking without waiting for an answer.</p><p> </p><p>Sure enough, after a few extra beats of silence, he heard the car door shut quietly and the locks click into place. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to wait to kill me until after the season finale of Kitchen Royale,” the driver chuckled weakly. “I really wanted to see who won.”</p><p> </p><p>“My thought is,” Sojiro said, pushing the door to the outside open and angling his cupped hand down lower to catch the spill of sunlight, “you have a pretty hard time saying no to people. Someone asks you for something, you give in so you don’t ruffle any feathers.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not always,” the driver said. “Sometimes I ruffle feathers and… also say yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“So if I told you that I had a really heavy package waiting for me in front of Leblanc and I hurt my back last night falling down the stairs, it’d be pretty normal for your boss to hear from you later that you ran late helping me out.”</p><p> </p><p>“You hurt your back?”</p><p> </p><p>“Hurts like a bitch. Been crying with pain since this morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“But,” the driver paused, awkward. Sojiro could feel his gaze darting over him. “Have you really…”</p><p> </p><p>“Been sobbing buckets. What, you haven’t heard me?”</p><p> </p><p>The driver looked bewildered and flustered. He began to cross the street, hesitated, tried and failed to toggle a non-existent crossing signal, then tentatively brushed Sojiro’s elbow as if to help him down from the curb. “Oh, it doesn’t hurt under direct sunlight,” Sojiro said, glancing once up the deserted back road before heading for the sidewalk on the other side. “Holistic remedy. Gotta wait ‘til I’m inside. Then I’ll be doubled over like an old shrew.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver reflexively excused himself when he nearly ran into a teenage girl coming out from behind the fence. Sojiro passed by the apartments at a leisurely clip and wondered randomly if he had time to do laundry tonight. It was technically Futaba’s week, but taking over that chore usually yielded net positive results, like fewer bleach spots and mildewed towels from where she forgot them in the washer for two days. They managed to make it nearly to the door to his café when the driver said, stumbling but firmer than before, “Listen, I would be of course very happy to help you, but I have to get—”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re taking a coffee with you,” Sojiro interrupted. He turned on his welcome mat to squared up to the driver for the first time. The driver looked fidgety and confused, eyes darting around like he was an escaped fugitive. “I meant what I said earlier about squaring up. I want you to wait here, either in the store or on this mat, while I prep it. Then I pay you, <em>in full, </em>what I owe you for the trip today, and you’ll go home with that coffee you earned. Got all that?”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s very generous, but I—”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, you didn’t get it. I’ll repeat it. I want you to stay here, <em>in my store or on this mat</em>, until I’ve prepped your coffee that you earned. After that, you take that coffee with you and we call it square. Got it?”</p><p> </p><p>The driver looked at him helplessly a moment.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro jangled his keys in his pocket and waited. He let his expression be read, then watched the man’s eyes drift over the store behind him. The man swallowed and tried to speak, and failed.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro gave him another moment. “Inside or out?”</p><p> </p><p>Again the driver tried to reply and failed. He swallowed, licked his lower lip, and murmured with barely-audible humor, “I look that bad, huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“You look fine. Just gonna get you some coffee.”</p><p> </p><p>“I appreciate this, but I really should—”</p><p> </p><p>“Fine, you look like someone dragged you behind a liquor store and beat you with a shovel,” Sojiro said. “You’re not leaving here without coffee, kid. You try and I’m ringing up your agency.”</p><p> </p><p>There was something a little warm and a lot hollow on the man’s face. “You drive a hard bargain.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you don’t want to sit, you can stand out here. I don’t care as long as you <em>wait.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>The man’s gaze found his shoes. It didn’t come back up. “Got it?” Sojiro said.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” the man sighed.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll wait.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro waited, a hard expression on his face. “Cross my heart,” the man said, obligingly drawing it on his chest. His continued smile towards his shoes was empty enough to suck something out of Sojiro’s own chest.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro escaped it by letting himself in. He absently tossed his keys and wallet on the shelf behind the counter and got to work, throwing a glance at Futaba’s communication pad to see if she’d been over. He fired up the pots as a matter of course, an eye on the upcoming mid-afternoon crowd, but scanned his shelves to debate just how much of a point he wanted to make. Supplies were limited for his top-shelf specials, but there were only a handful of beans he’d recommend in an iced coffee, and something told him that a hot steamy beverage being carried on a hot steamy day wouldn’t be appreciated.</p><p> </p><p>With only minor grumbling, he got down his Panama Esmeralda Geisha and prepared the materials for a pour-over. His customers tended to be the type to prefer to sit and savor, but he had a number of younger customers that insisted on coffee to go before school in the morning; he accessed his collection of compostable travel cups in his corner cupboard and set it up with a cardboard cozy to better fit into the taxi’s cup holder.</p><p> </p><p>He debated going with pure water but ultimately decided the vanilla-flavored cubes would bring out the floral aroma and balance the acidity. He let the Esmaralda brew as he leaned against the bar, rolling a cigarette in his fingers without lighting it. He could still see the edges of the driver’s silhouette to the right of the door’s window.</p><p> </p><p>When it’d finished brewing, he executed the pour-over, gave it a stir, and capped it. He savored the rare fragrance of the Esmaralda as he walked it over to the door, knowing it’d be a while before he found an excuse to make it again.</p><p> </p><p>As promised, the driver was leaning precariously against the wall by the door, skinny body folded in between the plant and the table. He was watching the passersby with a look somewhere between tender interest and the glaze of a four day-old corpse. “Here.” Sojiro let the door fall shut behind him with a tinkle of the bell. “Figured the iced coffee will do a better job of keeping you awake. There’s a kick, so drink it slow.”</p><p> </p><p>The driver didn’t respond. Sojiro waited, then followed his gaze. There was an old woman toddling slowly but steadily a few paces ahead of them down the street. She was carefully toting what looked like a heavy package in one arm as she leaned on her cane with the other. As she came across a grate, Sojiro saw her tap experimentally over it, looking for a safe place to position her cane.</p><p> </p><p>“Excuse me,” the driver said, and worked himself from the wall.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro watched him introduce himself to the woman with a murmur. After some brief exchanges, the woman allowed him to take her package. He cradled it into his elbow with a smile, then offered his other arm for her to take, saying something else that didn’t quite travel the distance. The woman squinted up at him with filmy eyes and pointed.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro waited as the driver delivered the bag to her stoop four doors down, helping her up the stairs, and disappeared briefly inside to deposit the package. As he came back out the door he turned back briefly; the woman could be seen patting his arm from the threshold before the door gently shut.</p><p> </p><p>The cubes inside the cup popped as they settled. “I’m sorry,” the driver said as he returned. There was a film of sweat across his brow. “This is very generous. It smells wonderful. You really didn’t have to go out of your way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Figured you and I might as well be square.” Sojiro handed it over, bracing the bottom so the paper coaster wouldn’t slip off in transit. “Don’t do anything stupid out there. You stay awake, you hear me?”</p><p> </p><p>“I will,” the man said. He took it, cradling the bottom with as much care as Sojiro had. He opened his mouth to say something else, then collapsed at Sojiro’s feet with a cacophonous splash that soaked through Sojiro’s shoes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sojiro blew eight ligaments and detonated at least two discs in his back helping him up to Akira’s empty room. The man frantically refused an ambulance and tried to crawl out the window when Sojiro tried to call anyway, so Sojiro flipped the sign on the door and dug through his kitchen for supplies instead. “I’m so sorry.” The man was on his back, pale as salt, the backs of his hands over his eyes. “What a waste.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about it.” The welcome mat was a lost cause but it’d been getting pretty tired anyway. This would be an excuse to upgrade as soon as he had the budget. Sojiro pulled the rickety desk chair over and peeled the man’s hands from his eyes. “There’s more were that came from.”</p><p> </p><p>“What a way to repay you for your generosity. I’m sorry, please forgive me.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro soaked the cloth in the bowl, wrung it out, and situated it over the man’s forehead. His glasses had suffered a bent right temple, but Sojiro was pretty sure he could wrangle it back into place if he could get his hands on his glasses kit. “My boss is going to wonder where I am,” the man said. “I have to get back.”</p><p> </p><p>“No boss in their right mind would want you out on the road right now. I’ll let you use the phone in a bit.” Sojiro clinically pressed the back of his hand against the side of the man’s face. It was blazing hot and he wasn’t a fucking doctor. This was probably already a lawsuit against Leblanc if you squinted at it right. “Can you take down some water?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” the man admitted, hoarse. His hands were back over his eyes and Sojiro prayed he wasn’t weeping. “I haven’t… I can’t lose this job. They already took a chance on me.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro sopped up some more heat before removing the cloth to rewet it. He checked his watch, gauging how much time he had until Futaba started to worry. Probably at least an hour. Traffic got dicey during rush hour and he’d left her with snacks. She’d cope. “I’m sorry,” the man whispered again. He was definitely in tears.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro wrung the cloth out one-handed. The man’s eyes fluttered a little as it returned, his pale throat jumping in a swallow. “Probably about time you told me your real name before I get it from your agency anyway,” Sojiro said nonjudgmentally.</p><p> </p><p>The man seemed nonplussed by the ministrations. His hands still bracketed his face, knuckles curled against his damp temples. At first Sojiro thought he’d have to repeat the question, but then the man swallowed again. “Takuto,” he murmured at last, barely a breath. “My name is Takuto.”</p><p> </p><p>“And the Maru I saw in the car?”</p><p> </p><p>“My family name. Maruki. Maruki Takuto.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro waited. “You sticking with that? Takuto?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s what my mother called me.”</p><p> </p><p>“My mother called me ‘pain in the ass vacuum mouth’, so I got hairs if you want to split them,” Sojiro said. “You got a history, Takuto?”</p><p> </p><p>“None on record. None that would prevent me from getting hired.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like history to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t have a history.” Maruki’s knuckles migrated, lodging instead between his teeth. The defensive motion was so unintentionally childlike that Sojiro paused despite himself, hand on the cloth, to watch. “I don’t have anything.”</p><p> </p><p>The chill of the cloth seeped into Sojiro’s palm. “I’m sorry,” Maruki said. “I can’t… my head isn’t on straight. I can’t organize my thoughts at all. I should leave.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro went down to fill up a glass of water. “C’mon, sit up,” he grunted, lowering his cranky rickety ass back into the cranky-ass rickety chair. “Take some of this down.”</p><p> </p><p>It took Maruki a moment to obey. When he did it was slow, almost mechanical, using the support of the wall behind him. Sojiro handed it over, caught it when Maruki fumbled it, and held it steady while they got it to his lips. “Thank you,” Maruki murmured when it was lowered.. “I didn’t think I was this bad off this morning.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro got up to put in distance. He slid the cloth off into the bowl of water, then absently leaned a shoulder against the shelving unit to get a better look. Maruki’s hands were pale around the glass, his fingers slender, veins like spiderwebbing bridging the knuckles. He looked like he hadn’t seen a solid meal since the Vikings invaded eastern Europe.</p><p> </p><p>It hadn’t really been a question, but the confirmation of his name did turn the key the rest of the way into the lock. October had been rough enough that more important business had prioritized itself at the time. Memories of Akira’s school counselor were mostly crowded out by the revelation that his adopted kids were part of a wanted vigilante group with the power to burrow their way into people’s psyches like cheery-ass skinwalkers. The impressions he’d gotten of Maruki when he’d first walked into Leblanc were the kinds of impressions he gleaned off any other customer. Predilection for sweet or acidic flavors, how much caffeine they needed to stay upright on the stool, whether they needed mild curry for a cat’s tongue or spicy curry for a dragon’s heart. Come to think of it, he hadn’t asked for the man’s name at the time. It was no wonder Maruki had assumed Sojiro had forgotten him.</p><p> </p><p>Remembering the way Futaba’s body language had fallen open when Maruki had spoken to her, Sojiro continued to turn information over slowly as he thought about his next step. Seeming to sense some tenterhooks, Maruki lowered the glass carefully into his lap and took a breath. “You probably have some questions.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve cooked up a few,” Sojiro said, still nonjudgmental. “We’ll start with the one that asks when was the last time food went down your neck.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not too long ago. I just don’t have a very strong constitution.”</p><p> </p><p>“We talking ‘soon’ as in hours, or days?”</p><p> </p><p>“The same thing, philosophically,” Maruki laughed, but very softly. His thumb was skidding up and down on the condensation forming on the glass. “I’m afraid I don’t recall. Not too long. Perhaps a day.”</p><p> </p><p>“Broke, bad memory, drugs, or self-destructive?”</p><p> </p><p>“A bit of a la carte, probably.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro was frank. “Pick one.”</p><p> </p><p>This finally seemed to break through the man’s dissociation. His eyes roamed up from the water to find Sojiro’s. Evidently he picked up the serious mien, because he quickly ducked his head, clearing his throat. “Broke, mostly,” Maruki murmured. “Never drugs. Money… doesn’t tend to be my first priority. I’ve never been very good at managing my finances.”</p><p> </p><p>“Put a lot of people in danger getting behind the wheel like that.”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki’s face twisted. Sojiro heard the squeak as his grip tightened on the glass. “It wasn’t intentional,” Maruki said. “Please believe me. I thought I had more in me than I did. It was my mistake. I’d have never done so otherwise.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro said nothing. He massaged the back of his head slowly and wondered how many fucks he truly had left to give at this point. “Will you…” Maruki seemed to hesitate. He carefully gathered the glass in again on his lap. “Will you call my agency?”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t know yet.”</p><p> </p><p>The honesty oddly seemed to placate him. Maruki was silent a moment, watching his own reflection in the water. “My cab doesn’t have a permit to park in this district, let alone in your lot. It’ll get towed eventually.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve got some time. They don’t really start manning or enforcing that until after five. I’ll stick a note on it before I go home. Can someone from your agency come and pick it up?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know. I’m not sure what the protocol for this is.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro massaged the back of his neck absently with his thumb.</p><p> </p><p>Maruki finally seemed to notice his glasses on the bedside table. He slid them off gingerly and rested them atop the jut of his knee, regret flickering across his face as he took in the bent temple and missing screw. “Another job for packing tape, it seems,” he laughed. It caught in his chest. “I really am a mess, aren’t I.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro marveled at the rich history of idiots this café had hosted. Furry four-pawed ones, rich ones, flamboyant ones, drunk ones. One who’d sat against the café in the rain for nearly three hours the week after Akira left because he could figure out how to knock on the door anymore without them. <em>It just don’t feel right, Boss. </em>He’d come down with a fever the next day high enough to bubble lead. Sojiro had bought a new comforter with the budget he didn’t have and assured Sakamoto’s mother over the phone every night for the next three days while he slept it all off in Akira’s old bed. <em>He’s not bothering me. He just needs some time. I got the space. It’s fine. </em></p><p> </p><p>Looking at the newest idiotic pile of feverish human baggage on his property, Sojiro felt more worlds realign in order to lean on his personal galaxy. He slid the cloth off and rewet it and rubbed his eyelids to imagine what personal space was supposed to look like. Dust motes and empty attics. Sunlight hitting an unused mattress.</p><p> </p><p>He lowered his hand. “You got somewhere to sleep?”</p><p> </p><p>The man’s dark eyes flitted up again. They were too large for his face. “Sleep,” Sojiro repeated. “You got somewhere to crash?”</p><p> </p><p>The man stared at him for a long time, uncomprehending. He flinched a little when Sojiro moved, but Sojiro only came to take the glass from him. “Tokata-san has been letting me use one of the empty offices at night,” Maruki murmured at last. “It’s not ideal, but I—”</p><p> </p><p>“You on the floor?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I – there are two office chairs in there. I push them together so I can stretch out my legs.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro studied his reflection in the remaining water. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s warm and clean,” Maruki said preemptively, incorrectly reading Sojiro’s expression. “I’ve been very fortunate he’s been so generous. I’ve had some… financial setbacks, but when my next check comes through, I should be able to start putting more away for a new apartment. I just need to be frugal until then.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like a plan.” Sojiro made for the stairs on legs that bitched at him roundly from the knees-up. He still had to clean up the coffee spill and had probably lost at least three thousand yen already by flipping his sign during the evening dinner hour. “You’re staying here tonight. I’ll bring you up a change of clothes. I’ve leave you enough for the bathhouse next door, but you can use the bathroom to tidy up if you don’t feel you can make it. The café opens at six to pick up the morning crowd, so if you wake up before then, keep it down until there’s a break in traffic.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait.” Maruki’s face lost several shades during this. “Sakura-san, I really can’t—”</p><p> </p><p>“You can, unless you can give me one <em>real </em>reason you can’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t possibly impose.”</p><p> </p><p>“You already have. I’m over it.” Did he still have Akira’s towels here? Sojiro tried uselessly to figure out where his past self put things. Probably directly up his ass where he stored the rest of the things he didn’t use, like common sense and self-preservation. “I’m gonna be making dinner for my kid. You allergic to anything?”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Wait</em>.” Maruki was a shuffle of elbows and knees. He struggled upright and had to quickly flail out a hand to catch himself against the wall. “I can’t stay. I really need to—”</p><p> </p><p>“Look, I’m not an idiot,” Sojiro said. “Do you really think I wouldn’t remember who you were?”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki stopped utterly.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro watched the cold tide of dread rise behind his eyes. Maruki looked around, edged towards the window, then seemed to sense how stupid the plan was and folded back on the bed. He hiked his knees up like a child. “I may have only talked to you that once, but it’s not just anybody who can get my daughter to open up on a first meeting,” Sojiro said. “Leaves an impression. Might’ve taken me a second back when you first picked me up, but I’m not <em>that </em>old. Give me a break.”</p><p> </p><p>When Maruki managed to speak it was nearly too hoarse to make out. “When did you remember?”</p><p> </p><p>“Remembered your name from the staff registry at Shujin and put two and two together after the first time you picked me up. The kanji in the ‘Ma’ in Maruki clinched it. Not really a common spelling.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you knew who I was, why didn’t you say anything?”</p><p> </p><p>“Why should I? I’m not in the business of grave-digging or ghoul-hunting. There’s plenty enough topside for me to stick a shovel in.”</p><p> </p><p>“You should’ve said something.” Maruki covered his face. “I feel like such an idiot.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>That’s </em>the part about all this that makes you feel like an idiot?” Sojiro asked incredulously. “You were at Shujin for six months and had a parent conference with me. For <em>both kids. </em>How the hell did you think a hat was gonna camouflage you? What kind of moron do you take me for?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not a moron,” Maruki said weakly. “Just… hoped my misdirection would delay the inevitable for a bit.”</p><p> </p><p>“You had to know accepting clients from here would turn me up eventually. If you really wanted to hide you would’ve stayed east of Yongen-Jaya. Plenty of clientele out there that would’ve never known your face.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was my assigned district. I couldn’t just say no.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then don’t take a taxi job. Go get some low-profile filing job or something down in shipment. Not a lot of places you can hide when you’re picking people up day in and day out.”</p><p> </p><p>“The taxi agency was the only—” Maruki trailed off suddenly. He blinked his way out from the barricade of his hands. “You said ‘both’ kids,” he said. “Just now, you said… I thought you just had your daughter.”</p><p> </p><p>“I do.”</p><p> </p><p>“The only other child I talked to you about was Kurusu-kun.”</p><p> </p><p>“What about it.”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki’s gaze was clear and astonished across the space. “You’ve adopted Akira?”</p><p> </p><p>“Akira’s my kid,” Sojiro said dismissively, diffusing the weight of the moment with a flap of his hand. “Doesn’t matter what his trashbag parents say. Whether he stays there or he gets away to come back home, I’m adopting him once he’s an adult so he’s out from under their thumb for good. Point is, I know who you are. And even if I <em>didn’t </em>know, you just collapsed into a heap on my floor. You’re not getting behind a wheel like this so you can take someone else out.”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki looked hollow with shock. He eased back against the wall behind the bed slowly, wiry body folding like origami so his knees crooked up against his chest. He slipped a hand behind his neck to massage it.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro had anticipated a dozen likely things to fall out of Maruki’s mouth, which meant of course Maruki chose none of those things. “He must be so thrilled.”</p><p> </p><p>“Huh?”</p><p> </p><p>“Kurusu-kun. He must be ecstatic. About the adoption.”</p><p> </p><p>Honestly taken aback, Sojiro finally paused at the landing with the bowl in the crook of his arms. “He loves you very much,” Maruki said. “That much was clear to me in our therapy sessions. He always seemed wistful that he had to return at the end of the year. At the time I thought it might be avoidance – him not wanting to return to the scene of the crime and relive those memories. But after a few sessions it became obvious that he valued what he was receiving here. You truly supported him during a rough time in his life.”</p><p> </p><p>The floor felt a little insubstantial under his feet. Sojiro stood there, blinking, waiting for the next salvo, but Maruki seemed lost in thought, continuing to massage the back of his neck with a shaking thumb. “I can’t impose,” Maruki said. “If he’s spoken to you about me, you know what I’ve done.”</p><p> </p><p>It took him a second to recover his voice. “Broad strokes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you know what happened in the metaverse.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not really my business.”</p><p> </p><p>“It involves your son. Or soon to be son. It’s very much your business.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro turned to face him fully. Evening light from the window behind Maruki flared in the chaotic mane of hair, illuminating the strands of silver previously hidden by shadow. He didn’t look up.</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, standing there with a stranger in a room that no longer felt like he owned, Sojiro leaned into that memory. Scabbed knuckles and haunted eyes. A phone call from home that had cut out in Akira’s hand. Dust motes trickling from the ceiling because Sojiro hadn’t been able to summon the decency to clean his attic before throwing a child into it to sleep. <em>Please take care of me. </em>He hadn’t even made the kid dinner that night. Futaba’s fearful eyes at the window as he’d left to pick him up had been the only thing he could focus on. <em>I’m sorry to be in the way. </em>“You’re seeing him, aren’t you,” Maruki said. “I’m invading his space.”</p><p> </p><p>“Quit trying to shrink my head,” Sojiro said. “I’m going to make dinner. I’ll bring yours back after my daughter eats. You allergic to anything, speak up now.”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki opened his mouth to say something. He shut it. His lower lip slid between his teeth. “I don’t want to impose,” he repeated, soft but firm. “If you’re determined to be generous, I won’t spurn the bed for the night, but I won’t take food from Futaba’s mouth.”</p><p> </p><p>Hearing his daughter’s name coming out of Maruki’s mouth elicited a lot of emotions. Most were pretty unpleasant but not all. Suddenly remembering that he wasn’t as divorced from the situation as he thought, Sojiro once again paused on the top stair to give him a hard look. “You fought Futaba in there too, didn’t you. In that meta-place.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Maruki said.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro was flat. “Did you hurt her?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. Never. God no.”</p><p> </p><p>“Akira?”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki was silent.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro drew in a breath to speak and then aborted it. He sagged against the landing’s divider and used his free hand to massage his eyes again. “Look, it’s getting late. I need to get food down my daughter’s throat before she riots and eats the table. We’ll sort this out later. Use the restroom while I’m out – clean up as best you can. There’s a bathhouse nearby that’d do you some good but we’re gonna have to wait until you can manage on your own. Anything else, just sit on it. I don’t have time to do this now.”</p><p> </p><p>Maruki was terribly soft. “And if I’m gone when you come back?”</p><p> </p><p>“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” Sojiro said, and left.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~^~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Futaba listed off fourteen options of dessert that she wanted him to feed her for dinner. Sojiro served her curry and forced two vegetables down her picky teenage gullet before clearing the table. It was his turn again for dishes, so he snapped his apron back off the hook and was sliding the first plate off the stack to dunk into the sudsy basin when Futaba said, apropos of nothing, “So when were you gonna tell me you were harboring a fugitive in our café?”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro dropped the dish with a force that made a chip fly off. “<em>I’m not.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Are so. I was waiting all through dinner for you to fess up.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not harboring a fugitive.”</p><p> </p><p>“You sure about that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Where is this coming from?”</p><p> </p><p>Futaba was upside down on the couch, hair trailing over the side to puddle on the floor, bare feet waggling in the air. He saw her finger shoot up over the ledge to accompany them as she recited in a deep voice, “<em>Then you’re a fucking idiot—</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“You little— ” He dropped a second plate. “<em>What did I tell you about putting bugs in my café.</em>”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, literally nothing except ‘I don’t like bugs in my café’ which you should know affects me literally not even sort of,” Futaba said. “Just tell me what’s going on already. You know I’ll just ferret it all out anyway if you don’t tell me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Futaba—” his hand was soapy. He remembered it too late when he went to rub his eye. Cursing under his breath, he jammed the faucet on and lifted his glasses to angle the stream onto his face. “There’s just someone who needed help. This isn’t going to be a repeat of Akira.”</p><p> </p><p>“And <em>why </em>weren’t you gonna tell me, exactly/”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t want to upset you.”</p><p> </p><p>Futaba’s legs crooked. She used the leverage of the back of the couch and hauled herself upright, easing her skinny body onto the back to perch like a bird. “It’s just overnight.” Sojiro plucked the towel from the handle of the refrigerator and wiped his face down, blinking rapidly to dispel the rest of the sting. “He collapsed in my store – I needed to take some responsibility. You’ll understand when you’re older.”</p><p> </p><p>“Lame old-person cop-out,” Futaba said. “C’mon, Sojiro, you’re better than this. You realize we like, <em>fought </em>him, right? Maruki? As in, he had a persona and was in the metaverse and sort of tried to do a take over the world thing? How on earth did you think I <em>wouldn’t </em>find out?”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro pulled up a stool from the kitchen to sit on. Futaba was chewing on something he was fairly sure wasn’t from dinner or that had even existed a moment ago. She’d pulled it directly from nowhere. “Futaba, I…” He bit his tongue sharply, frustrated, trying to figure out how best to word his next point. “I know. I need you to listen real close to my question, all right? I know you’re not always comfortable about talking about the… the metaverse stuff, but I have to ask—”</p><p> </p><p>“He morphed into a giant biblical tentacled mecha-god and begged us to let him save us all from our boo-boos,” Futaba said. “He cried. It was the least villainous villain speech I’ve ever heard save for that one evil pigeon from the Passenger Pigeon Romance! Featherman episode, and at least <em>he </em>got a dramatic orchestral sting when he betrayed the hero. This was just sad.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro parsed this slowly. Futaba was still chewing and looking at him like he was supposed to provide a response. “Okay,” he said.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that all you wanted to know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. I mean — <em>no.</em>” He took off his glasses and scrubbed them a while with his shirt. “You told me everything that happened in that… that alternate reality. I get that part. I want to know about <em>him. </em>Did he hurt you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Me specifically? Nah. And actually…”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro watched her pause, tucking her tongue against the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Never mind,” she said. “I don’t want to air that right now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is it relevant?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, but I want to sit on it. It’s not bad,” she said when she saw his expression. “His memory was… kind of screwy once we got him out. We’d knocked him around a lot and he was having a hard time staying conscious. I don’t know how much of that was him and how much of it was Adam Kadmon. He just did something for me during the fight I’m not sure he remembers.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re sure it’s not something I need to know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said, not bad. I just want to see if he remembers it on his own.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro considered pressing but knew any further questing would make her clam up. “And the others?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, his persona knocked <em>them</em> all around like pool balls. He was sorta ridiculously level 99.”</p><p> </p><p>So he had hurt Akira. For some reason the confirmation made something sink in Sojiro’s stomach. The warmth of a smile in a rearview mirror. Hands that shook with exhaustion as they took an old woman’s groceries for her. Sojiro had to kick him out. This was something that couldn’t be fixed with platitudes and iced coffee. Even now his phone felt heavy in his pocket. <em>Hey kid. </em>A text with a picture of his occupied bed under a glaze of dust motes and sunlight. <em>Look who I found</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Futaba was talking. “What?” he said.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you quit spacing out?” Futaba looked cross. “I was saying that his persona did all the heavy lifting. He was way too squeamish to fight us himself.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think I’m an idiot? Personae don’t act without permission from the wielder.”</p><p> </p><p>“Categorically false. Mine totally sprouted tentacles and slurped me up without a dialogue option to nope out of it. But that’s not the point. Just give him a break, Sojiro, seriously. We’ve kind of been over this for ages. None of us hold a grudge.”</p><p> </p><p>“Give him a <em>break?</em>” Sojiro was incredulous. “He attacked you!”</p><p> </p><p>“C’mon, did you even look at him? He’s made of tissue paper and gummy wrappers. There’s no way he could offer any of us a decent fight on his own. Just listen for a sec,” Futaba said when he tried to interrupt. “I’m not splitting hairs with you. I mean, I <em>am, </em>but that’s not what I’m <em>trying </em>to do. He cooked up a <em>whole world </em>built on butterflies and rainbow-pooping unicorns because that’s how he thinks everybody deserves to live. Murderers, criminals, good guys, doggies, kitties, sewer rats. All deserve to live inside a big happy rainbow. And yeah, he tried to defend what he’d built. Not a question. Still doesn’t make him <em>evil</em>. It’s more nuanced than that. Besides, we’re the ones who picked the fight.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t.” Sojiro hid his face in his hands for a while. “Don’t do that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t do what.”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t make excuses for someone who hurt you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m <em>not </em>making— gaugh, will you please just listen to me?” Futaba pried his hands away. “Sojiro. I’m <em>not </em>victim-blaming and I’m <em>not </em>making excuses for him. All right? I’m just telling you how it was. If there’s one thing I learned in the metaverse, it’s that a reductive categorization of good and evil doesn’t get anyone anywhere. All palaces are created from intense cognitive distortion. Greed, lust, jealousy, all of the above, whatever. It’s a grab-bag of sin. Maruki’s? His was made out of sorrow. For <em>other</em> people. His persona materialized because his heart was <em>too big to fit in his body. </em>And I’m sorry, but I’m just… I can’t demonize that. I know you disagree, but I’m sorry, you weren’t <em>there. </em>You didn’t see what we saw. You didn’t see the look on his face when it all crumbled underneath him. It sucked. Nobody wanted to hurt him. We just… wanted to make him stop.”</p><p> </p><p>It was easily the longest speech he’d heard her make that wasn’t about pets or curry. The fact that it was about the metaverse was simultaneously relieving and terrible. “If the reality over there was so wonderful, why did you knock it down?”</p><p> </p><p>“I dunno,” Futaba said, surprising him. “I mean, I had my mom, you two were together, Akechi-kun was alive, Ryuji could run again, Ann had Shiho back… everybody was happy. On the surface it was a paradise. But underneath… I guess something in me rejected it because I didn’t build it, you know? It’s not what I worked so hard for. I miss my mom, but I like being here with you just as much. We worked hard for what we’ve got. It hurt a lot, but we did it together. I didn’t want to erase all that just because I miss someone who isn’t here anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro stared at her helplessly, hand curled vaguely around her wrist. “You need a drink,” Futaba decided. She slid off the couch before he could stop her and jogged to the fridge. “And <em>I </em>need a snack. That worked out. Here.”</p><p> </p><p>“Futaba,” he began, and grunted with surprise when she mashed the can of beer against his cheek. “Now, <em>look</em>—”</p><p> </p><p>“Open ittttt. Take a drink. Just slow your roll for a sec.”</p><p> </p><p>He sighed and popped it open. She retreated with her chip bag back onto the lip of the sofa, which was apparently her new favorite spot in the house to mess with his reality. Last week it’d been the kitchen counter. “Look, I won’t tell you not to kick him out,” Futaba said. “You do what you want to do. But just… I don’t want that on me. None of us hate him. He’s… Doc, you know? He’s not a bad guy. And he tried <em>really </em>hard. I know how it feels to try and still get everything knocked out from underneath you. If you’re gonna do it, just… be gentle about it. Okay? Like <em>real </em>real gentle. Just tell him it’s bad for business or something. And <em>don’t</em> throw my name into it. And don’t throw him out without giving him something for the road. Just do that for me, okay?”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro cycled between things he didn’t want to know and things he really didn’t want to know and ended up somewhere in the middle of his own fugue. He watched her eat things exactly like she’d been raised by two generations of mountain goats. “Okay?” Futaba pressed. “Deal?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this earlier?”</p><p> </p><p>“I <em>did </em>tell you. You just kept changing the subject.”</p><p> </p><p>“I did <em>not,</em> I just don’t get it, all right? It goes over my head.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sojiro, I have no idea why you pretend like you don’t understand cognitive psience,” Futaba said. “Like, it’s not cute. You don’t have to dumb down your intelligence when you talk to me, all right? I won’t break if you mention Mom’s research.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not—” he shoved down the rest of his sentence with a medicinal gulp of his beer. “It’s just been the cause of a lot of problems, that’s all. I have a right to not want to talk about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fair, but you don’t have a right to act stupid about it. It just wastes time.”</p><p> </p><p>He set the beer aside and for good measure stole her chip bag. She howled a complaint as he carried it back to the kitchen. “If you’re hungry, eat more vegetables,” he said. He clipped it shut and tossed it up on the highest shelf, where his daughter would presumably teleport the instant he turned his back. “I need to go lock up the store.”</p><p> </p><p>Her bare little feet were in the kitchen an instant later. “Are you going to kick him out?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s too much trouble. I’ll kick him out in the morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Sojiro.</em>” She embraced him from behind. “You’re like the world’s most crotchety knight.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t keep taking in strays, Futaba. We can’t afford it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then charge rent and have him pay you in optimism.” She eeled around him and grabbed the half-finished box of strawberry pocky before he could stop her. “<em>Remember: service with a smile!</em>” she hollered as she pelted up the hallway, and a moment later her door slammed and locked.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro rued his existence for fourteen minutes while he used the leftovers to mix up a bowl of Chinese medicinal rice. He resented his existence an extra four as he boiled the water for tea, then let it steep as he loathed his existence and scrounged up Futaba’s old bento to put it all the food in.</p><p> </p><p>Leblanc was still unlocked when he got to the door. Sojiro angled himself in carefully, remembering this time to pull in the stained mat. There’d be extra dirt coming into his café for the next couple of days but he figured it was better than keeping the eyesore out and dissuading new customers.</p><p> </p><p>Maruki was asleep under the spill of moonlight from Akira’s window, fetal position under the sheet. His back was rising and falling steadily, his breaths soft and congested in the silence.</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro stopped at the top of the stairs, conflicted emotions slowing his trajectory. He’d half-hoped Maruki would take the decision out of his hands and kindly fuck off before Futaba got too invested in this. Sojiro meant what he said about limiting his quota of strays. Futaba’s description of Maruki as a golden tentacled god in the metaverse wasn’t doing him a lot of favors either. Mostly Sojiro wanted to kick him out without having his daughter climbing up into his grill with her own tentacles, which would be harder the more she kept latching onto Maruki as a pet project. Best to feed and water him, take care of the peripheral damage, and throw him out the door in the morning. Gently.</p><p> </p><p>His feet moved him before he could give them the order. Maruki’s glasses glinted from where he’d carefully set them on the stand. The man stirred with a hitch of breath when Sojiro set the bento down atop the bedside table, flailing reflexively to his right and smacking his hand against the wall. “Eat up,” Sojiro said, cricking the hell out of his back as he straightened. He knew morning would teach him the errors of his philanthropy, but right now his nerve endings were as exhausted as the rest of him. “Drink the tea while it’s hot. I’m gonna go lock up.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Maruki’s voice was blurred. He had shakily climbed up against the wall. “What time is it?”</p><p> </p><p>“After dark. I’m locking up.”</p><p> </p><p>“Tokata-san?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s Sakura. I brought you dinner. Don’t let it go to waste.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait. Who—”</p><p> </p><p>Halfway back to the stairs, Sojiro paused at the note of panic. Maruki was fumbling at the bedside table. A moment later the crooked glasses were on his face, and Maruki’s wide, frightened eyes were on him in the gloom, his hand splayed against the wall behind him as though preparing to launch himself off it or maybe through it.  </p><p> </p><p>Realizing how disorienting the surroundings must be, Sojiro swallowed a surge of guilt. “It’s Sakura,” he sighed, gruffly reaching over to toggle the light. “You’re in Leblanc. Brought you up earlier after you fainted. Ring a bell?”</p><p> </p><p>“Leblanc.” Maruki flinched as the bulb flooded the area. He still looked dazed, but once he’d tented his hand over his eyes to help them adjust, Sojiro could see his gradual recognition as his gaze roamed the room. “I’m in Leblanc.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro gave him a once-over, frowning. Maruki had taken off his vest and folded it neatly over the back of Akira’s desk chair, organizing his boots and socks at the foot of the bed. Again too late, Sojiro remembered he’d promised to bring him over a change of clothes. “I’m sorry,” Maruki said. “I’d only planned to nap for an hour. I didn’t mean to stay so long.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re fine.” The box Akira had left would have to do. Sojiro bent on increasingly uncooperative knees to rummage through it. Akira hadn’t brought much in the way of clothes and had taken even less when he’d left, but he’d acquired a healthy collection of gifts from his friends throughout the months. Some ransacking turned up what was likely a joke pair of fuzzy bunny pajama pants and an intentionally voluminous sweater high quality enough to have probably come from the Okumura girl. “Stay here tonight,” Sojiro said, tossing the clothes onto Maruki’s lap and making him fumble. “I mean it. I’m locking the door, so it’ll be a security hazard if you leave in the middle of the night. Whatever else you’ve got going on, you can sort it out in the morning.”</p><p> </p><p>“My cab.” Maruki looked sallow under the light. He still had his hand over his eyes. “I called Tokata-san. He told me I had to move the car. It comes out of my pay if it gets towed on the company’s expense.”</p><p> </p><p>“I already did that,” Sojiro lied, making a mental note to hit up the garage. He’d honestly intended to take care of it earlier and had gotten distracted by domestic terrorism. “What’d he say?”</p><p> </p><p>“He won’t pay my base rate for the day, and I owe him my… my fee for your ride, but he says he won’t fire me. A-and I have to pay for the gas it takes to send someone out to pick up the car. I’m sorry I used your phone without permission.”</p><p> </p><p>Huh. Sojiro barely heard him. “Eat your food,” he said, turning towards the stairs. “Help yourself to the water downstairs if you need more during the night. I’m heading out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sakura-san.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro again turned. Maruki had used the bedside table to leverage himself onto his feet. He now sketched a deep bow that nearly cracked his goddamn forehead off the corner and had his glasses bouncing off the floor a second later. “Damn,” Maruki muttered, fishing them up and clutching them as he straightened. “Thank you. I don’t know what I did to deserve this kindness from you, but I… I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about what I did in—”</p><p> </p><p>“Eat your food,” Sojiro interrupted him, keenly aware of the fact that his daughter was probably tapping into the conversation with trollish delight. “And it’s not a kindness, it’s insurance. You collapsed in my store because I bullied you into leaving your cab. You’d have probably made it back to your agency if I hadn’t fussed with your schedule. There’s no debt here, understood? Just balancing the scales.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re wrong,” Maruki said, surprising him. He wilted immediately, clutching his glasses to his chest with enough force to probably bend the other temple. “You’re wrong,” he repeated, softer. “I’m aware of the burden I represent. Not just to you, Sakura-san. If it weren’t for you kindness, I’d… I’d likely have ended up somewhere worse. I could’ve… really hurt someone in the shape I was in. I should’ve known better. For you to… take me in, despite that – despite <em>everything else – </em>it is a kindness. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay it.”</p><p> </p><p>He could psychically hear Futaba sniggling on the other end of her surveillance. Horrified, he beat a flustered retreat. He double-checked the pots, turned the security nightlight on, and bolted the front door before the cosmos could get any more leverage to screw with him.</p><p> </p><p>Futaba was likely expecting him to come back right away, but he knew himself well enough to know he wouldn’t be able to be patient with her sense of humor right now. He spared them both the trauma of his temper by diverting himself. He pocketed the keys and slid his hat lower on his eyes, taking the long way to the garage and letting the colors and sounds of Yongen-Jaya filter through and around him until he felt steadier.</p><p> </p><p>Old Haruhito was at the booth when he came up to it, reading a dirty magazine poorly disguised behind an owner’s manual for a Nissan 2009. “Hey.” Sojiro thunked his knuckle on the glass. “Forget something?”</p><p> </p><p>“Sakura-kun.” Bleary eyes peered out into the relative gloom beyond the box. “Oh yeah. That reminds me.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro waited with strained patience as Haruhito languidly fished up the citation slip. “Found a car in your spot that wasn’t yours,” Haruhito said. “But it was a cab, so I figured something had happened.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you call me if you thought something was off?”</p><p> </p><p>“Didn’t see your car. You wanna file it, you can file it. Management will collect it at the end of the week.”</p><p> </p><p>“What would you have done if it’d been a different car?”</p><p> </p><p>“Figure something else had happened. Just maybe faster. Lot of busy businessmen around here if you know what I mean. I usually give it a day to make sure.”</p><p> </p><p>Sojiro snapped the citation slip and crumpled it irritably in his fist. “Hot date?” Haruhito said.</p><p> </p><p>“Gimme a cigarette and I’ll tell you about it.”</p><p> </p><p>Without taking his eyes off the magazine, Haruhito fished out a cigarette from his breast pocket. “Ran off with the cab driver and left me the bill,” Sojiro said. “All I got was a sock.”</p><p> </p><p>“You old dog,” Haruhito grunted, laughing around his smoke. “You know it’s true love when she leaves you the wallet to pay the bill.”</p><p> </p><p>Futaba was safely in her room by the time he made his way home. Sojiro was seeing double. He washed up as best he could with the sink, too tired to do much but scrub the sweat out of his beard, and collapsed into bed with the velocity of someone careening off a bridge.</p><p> </p><p>He was on the edge of sleep when he heard something scritch under his door. Groaning, he peeled an eye up from his pillow and squinted in the darkness. There was a pale rectangle on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>He heaved himself out of bed to pick it up, turning on his bedside lamp. It was a drawing of an anatomically-correct heart with tentacles and big, smiley eyes. The caption underneath read <em>You really octo-vated my uwus!!!</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>… he needed a drink.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. in the second watch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts/mentions of suicide.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>~^~<strong><br/></strong></p>
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<p>Akira texted him a picture of a dachshund in an aquamarine vest and Sojiro had a couple of reckonings on his plate. Some of them were his doing and some of them were karmically assigned. He left Futaba’s breakfast in the refrigerator and went to open the shop as usual, and for a while it was easy to fade into the rhythm of his usual routine: three call-in orders for pick-up, his usual big-spending cranky businessman customer who mainlined his Jamaican Blue Mountain, and the elderly widow who lived down the street and blew half an hour on crossword puzzles as the morning news droned in the corner. Summer traffic had a hit-or-miss element that usually had him guessing, but chilly mornings typically saw more random traffic as the warm tones of Leblanc’s exterior drew in the same people more apt to pass it up on a hot day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro determinedly didn’t think about upstairs until the flow of customers tapered off after eight. He eased the flame down under the pots and spent a quarter of an hour casing his refrigerator, bracing himself against the door as he mentally wrote down the supplies for curry that he needed to pick up at the corner mart. When the morning news had cycled off into a daytime drama and the alleyway outside remained void of customers, he flicked it off and leaned his elbows on the counter for a while to figure out how guilty he felt about blowing Akira off. There was a ten percent chance he could play it cool and a two hundred ten percent chance Akira would psychically sense his distress from several cities away. He wouldn’t put it past Futaba to feed him information either. The dachshund in the vest could just be a dachshund. It could also be a test of honesty Sojiro was being set up to fail. <em>Nice vest </em>could very well be Akira’s cue that Sojiro was willing to hide important things from him, like ‘I’m hosting your would-be metaverse overlord in your bed’ or ‘I’m potentially endangering your sister by hosting your would-be metaverse overlord in your bed’. Truth led to things. Lies led to other things.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the end he texted <em>Nice vest </em>because he was still too tired from yesterday to decipher international code. Maruki still hadn’t made his presence known, which meant he was either asleep, hiding, or had followed through on his threat to crawl out the window. Sojiro had no basis of statistics to predict which one was most likely.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He brewed himself a cup of Narimo and allotted himself a few extra minutes of quiet to enjoy it, bracing a crossword puzzle on the counter and filling in a few of the slots. When he could no longer stifle his curiosity, he slid the book into his back pocket, thumbed the pen behind his ear, and ascended the stairs with a stifled groan of protest as his back creaked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was tangled in the sheet atop the bed, hair mussed on the pillow. His foot was hanging over the side, his wrist crooked and mashed against the wall like he’d tried to claw through it sometime in the night. His dishes from the previous night sat in a neat pile on his bedside table.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro took them up and glanced through them. The tea was drained, half the rice portion congealing in the bowl. The chopsticks had been painstakingly nestled in the drawer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The amount left behind gave Sojiro pause. All things considered it really hadn’t been exorbitant. He’d accounted for the late hour and the fact that Maruki likely wasn’t used to big meals. The portion Maruki had taken down wouldn’t have rounded the belly of a rat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He brought the dishes down, disposed of the leftover rice, and soaped up the bento before leaving it on the rack to air-dry. Using what supplies he could scrounge up, he prepared some breakfast miso and tea, throwing in a simple onigiri with a plum center before lugging it up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki didn’t stir when Sojiro set the plate and glass down. Sojiro at this point had more or less updated his plans. He briskly rubbed the steam off his glasses and resettled them into place before giving Maruki’s shoulder a shake.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took several attempts for Maruki to stir. “Up and at’em,” Sojiro said. “Got your breakfast here. I’m gonna get back downstairs and start preparing the curry for the lunch rush.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s voice was barely audible. “What time is it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Breakfast time. Sit up, your chow’s getting cold.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki tried to move his arm, got his elbow caught in the taut tangle of sheets, and instead shuffled his legs. “Sakura-san.” He turned his head on the pillow to blink groggily up at Sojiro. “Sakura-san,” Maruki muttered again to himself, eyes closing. He made a sound in his throat as he freed his other hand to scrub his palm across his face. He sounded defeated. “I meant to leave before store hours.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Does it look like I’m worried about that? Take as much of that down as you can. I’ll be up to collect the dishes later.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have to go.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not before breakfast you don’t. Old Haruhito told me someone came to pick up your cab. Not gonna keep you anywhere against your will, but I’m not helping you do anything stupid either. Your boss already knows you’re not coming in today, so you might as well take it easy and get some food down your neck.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s palm remained in front of his face. His voice was still oddly filmy and indistinct, like a TV playing in another room. “My papers were in the cab.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then they’re back at the agency by now. It’s fine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t miss this paycheck. I won’t be able to afford to eat.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do you think is right next to you?” The entire situation was so stupid that Sojiro nearly laughed out of masochism. “You’re already here. You’ve got food, a bed, and you’re not fired, so you might as well make the most of it. Just don’t make noise up here to draw attention to yourself. I’ll bring you up something later after the rush is over.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki didn’t reply. He remained there on the bed, palm upturned over his eyes, breathing shallowly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro tossed his hands up and went back downstairs to prep the curry. The rest of the morning passed by without further hitch, an unexpected slip into rain around noon bringing in a healthier than usual crowd as the odd customer hastily ducked in from the alley to escape the drizzle.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Flushed with steam, Sojiro prepared his spicy curry and flavored it with the remaining apples he had on hand. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to try, he reserved three slices and sprinkled them with lemon juice to keep them from oxidizing too fast before setting them in the refrigerator for later. As if psychically hijacking his plans for the future, Futaba texted him just after noon demanding vittles fit for a queen, so he obediently also reserved a bowl of curry for her in the event she bestirred herself enough to come get it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was in the process of ringing up a take-out meal for an elderly woman when a concussive thud from upstairs made his hand jump on the keys. “Oh my.” Natsuko blinked upwards with sleepy surprise. “Sojiro, you didn’t tell me your boy was back here with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Slipped my mind,” Sojiro growled, taking off the extra zero and tallying up some extra excuses for murder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well he is just the most wonderful boy,” Natsuko said. “Oh, do tell me if he decides he wants to make deliveries for me again. I have a new delivery girl but she just isn’t as reliable as Akira-kun. He would always remember to pick up my favorite things even when I forgot to put them on the list. Half the time my new girl doesn’t even remember to pick up the list.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll make sure to let you know.” He walked her to the door and handed the bag handles over to her once she was outside, steadying her until she brought up her umbrella. He watched over her until he saw her safely crest the main street, then closed the door and headed upstairs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was on the floor between the shelving unit and the plant, the overturned pot spilling dirt around him in a pool. He had managed to wedge himself upright against the shelf, knee crooked, hair clumped in his fist as he panted behind the support. There was no color in his face. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I tried to catch it before it toppled. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro took a knee and brushed the soil aside, eyeing the peripheral damage. Akira had doted on the plant and had left him in charge of it, making him promise to water it weekly and add nutrients bi-monthly. It had suffered a bent branch but otherwise straightened back up with minimal protest when Sojiro set it back up on its stand. “I ruined it, didn’t I,” Maruki said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s fine.” Sojiro pressed a hand against Maruki’s forehead, keeping half an ear out for the bell downstairs. Maruki turned his head away from the pressure slightly but otherwise didn’t put up a fight. “You’re on fire,” Sojiro gritted, exasperated. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in bed?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I was trying to figure out how to use the bathroom without attracting attention,” Maruki said weakly. His eyes were still closed, his lips as blanched with color as the rest of him. It looked like he was on the verge of throwing up in somebody’s lap. “I think I stood too quickly. I’m sorry that I made a mess. I’ll clean it up. I didn’t mean to cause a fuss.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A fuss. Sojiro was laundry-listing some pretty vivid fusses as he went down to flip the sign and lock the door. He returned to help Maruki down the stairs, closing the door behind him once Maruki had angled himself into the bathroom.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro had a clarifying smoke at the counter while he reviewed all the fucks he gave in numerical order. When he was done he took out his phone to dial. “<em>Long time no contact, Sakura-san,</em>” Tae Takemi said. “<em>Who died?</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No one yet. Got some fresh meat for you. You still running lab experiments or are you full up on rats?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>There are never enough rats,</em>” Tae said. “<em>That said, I’ve been narrowing the scope of my focus this past month. Less intentional poisoning, more incidental poisoning. It broadens my scope of research.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You still make house calls?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was something rattling around in the background. He heard her cover the receiver, heard her speak; when she came back on her tone was brisker and more professional. “<em>Is it Futaba?</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No. Stray I picked up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She was dry again. “<em>That seems to be a habit of yours.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro didn’t descend into the maw of crushing madness but it was close. “Adult man, thirty-something, high fever. Collapsed twice in as many days. I figure he’s just tired and dehydrated, but I don’t want to take any chances if it’s something more serious.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Would I happen to know this potential lab rat?</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Possibly. Sojiro actually hadn’t given that much thought. He had no idea if Maruki was a licensed PhD or if he’d even travel in her circles if he was. “Akira’s probably mentioned him. Counselor at his school. I took him in last night when he fainted in the café.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>He fainted in your café and you just now thought to call me?</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look, you coming over or not?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was no response. Sojiro waited, then realized that she’d hung up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was about to call back when he heard the faucet shut off in the bathroom. The door opened slowly to a crack; Sojiro saw the thatch of hair first. “I turned the sign,” Sojiro said. “Let’s get you back upstairs.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I really should go.” Maruki’s voice was thready and exhausted. He was clinging to the bathroom frame. “I’m causing trouble for everyone.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro steadied him by the waist and guided him back upstairs without casualties. As Maruki was fumbling with the sheet, Sojiro squatted down to rummage through the supply box again. The comforter he found was threadbare but soft; he dug it out while managing not to spill anything. “I’ll bring you up some water,” Sojiro said, tossing it on Maruki’s lap. “Think you can take anything down?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki shook his head. He looked like he was barely keeping topside.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro pushed him back down to the pillow and covered him up. He took the uneaten breakfast downstairs and tossed the miso, salvaging the onigiri with a cheesecloth and stuffing it in the refrigerator to worry about later. He didn’t have a thermometer at the café that wasn’t designed for jabbing into cooked meat. Neither he nor Futaba tended to get sick, though that’d probably change once she started attending high school.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p><em>What do I do with this. </em>He was surprised by the intensity of his frustration. He threw a used dishtowel on the counter and scrubbed his face down under his glasses. What did he do with this. Calling an ambulance was still an option but something was staying his hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He began to hunt around for the basin and a fresh cloth when the door jarred on its hinges like it was being kicked by a boot. “Café’s closed,” he snapped, striding over to the window, then paused when he saw Takemi’s distinctive dye job. “You came,” he murmured as he opened the door. He had to lean against the doorframe for a moment to gather his composure. “Give a guy a hint next time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I like to keep Y-chromosomes upright.” She ducked under his arm shamelessly, scuffing her boots off on the mat. “Coast clear?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Clear as it can be. The rat’s upstairs. Let’s get down to it.” Sojiro locked the door again and faced her firmly. “What kind of payment we looking at for this?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Aren’t you businesslike this morning,” Takemi said. “Nice. I like it. Depends on the patient, the diagnosis, and the treatment. I shuttered my doors for this, so maybe I’ll charge for lost revenue too. It depends on how mercenary I feel like being today.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Remind me why I called you again?” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because I assume this lab rat needs to duck the attention of either law enforcement, the media, the medical community, or a mixed bag of all of the above,” Takemi said. “Which – for a fellow confidant of the illustrious Phantom Thieves and someone you claim Akira knows – makes the list of possible lab rats you’re hiding rather small. Don’t you think?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Would you just get up there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And people say it’s a marvel you’re still single.” Takemi had a lollipop in her mouth. She shuffled it to the other side of her smile and patted his arm as he passed. “I’ll take care of it. Take a load off. You remember what I told you about stress and your heart.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And now Futaba and whatever ears she had planted in here knew about stress and his heart too, which meant this day had just gotten exponentially more annoying without him having to lift any further fingers. He counted to five. “Tell me if you need anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re a peach,” she said, and was up the stairs a moment later with the rest of her antagonism.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro clattered around the kitchen to cover up the sound of money flying out his ass. He paused to assemble two call-in orders and met his patrons at the door with their bags, waving away their concerns at the early closing. “Just a routine cleaning of the bathroom,” he said, smiling warmly as the housewife flushed at it. “Just figured that’s an evil that should be vanquished without civilian casualties.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took Takemi a full half hour to clunk back down the stairs. At that point Sojiro had wound his way through a second cup of Narimo and had marginally managed to slow his own roll with a boring documentary on Heian art. He palmed it off as Takemi slid herself onto one of the barstools with a sigh, setting her bag down beside her. It clinked suspiciously.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro poured the Mocha Matari he’d prepared for her, layered it with a surface of fresh cream, and slid it over on a saucer to her with a handful of chocolates. “Thank you.” The hands that Takemi wrapped around it were nearly as pale as the porcelain. She took a genuinely appreciative whiff, her eyes fluttering shut as the steam wafted up to her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro wiped down his side of the bar. Under Leblanc’s warm lighting she was striking in cool tones: black and blue and silver that clinked in studs and chains. She took her time, cradling the mug throughout ladylike sips, before finally lowering it back to the countertop. “He’s sleeping now,” she reported. “His fever had him in a lot of pain. I gave him an anti-pyretic and analgesic cocktail that’ll knock him out for a few hours. He’ll need to put something in his stomach before he takes the next dose. You say he collapsed on your doorstep? And again this morning?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Passed out the first time. Not sure if he passed out the second time or just lost his balance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What was he doing here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro didn’t bother obfuscating. Even if Takemi were oblivious enough to somehow miss the taxi driver uniform folded on the shelving unit, it was obvious Maruki wasn’t a regular. “Noticed something was screwy with him when he ferried me home. He’d taken off before I could pay him in full the first time, so I invited him to the café to brew him up some coffee.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takemi’s eyes were catlike over her mug as she brought it to her lips. “Sure his collapse wasn’t a commentary on the coffee?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Cute. What’s wrong with him?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I have an itemized list if you want it, but for the most part it’s a trifecta of dehydration, malnutrition, and exhaustion. A sinus infection is the root of the fever – probably triggered from all the pollen and then worsened when he delayed treating it. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest. He hasn’t eaten a solid meal in weeks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wouldn’t surprise me.” The man stacked up like a pile of polygons.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I prescribed him a round of antibiotics and a nasal spray to clear up the infection. A day later and I’d have wanted him on an IV for his dehydration, but it looks like you turned that around in time. He’ll be weak for a while. He shouldn’t be working and he shouldn’t be getting behind a wheel – at the very least, not on the cocktail <em>I</em> have him on.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro leaned against the counter and rubbed his eyes slowly. “I do know him,” Takemi said. “He’s infamous in the world of theoretical cognitive research. He’s participated in a number of studies under the umbrella of mental health – mostly intervention strategies for neuroatypical grade school students. Some of his methods have actually somewhat wound their way into standard first-year medical curriculum, though he’s not usually cited by name. What studies he personally pioneered were usually absorbed by teams with more funding. The rest of his studies… let’s just say that which is lucrative doesn’t always bring a windfall to the right people. He was famous for going rogue and securing ancillary funding for his pet projects.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He sounds like a pain in the ass.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes, but a brilliant pain in the ass,” Takemi said. “Cognitive research historically sees spotty funding. Sometimes the overhead is interested in it and sometimes they view it as a money-sucking black hole. For him to be that invested in it without financial support, while <em>also </em>finding the time and mental energy to organize coherent data sets on neuroatypical behaviors, is… pretty extraordinary. Almost unfathomable.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro kept working at a stain until it yielded. “Doesn’t have that energy now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, he doesn’t,” Takemi said. “If I may ask, how exactly did you two cross paths?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Like I said, he taxi’d me home.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, I needed to scratch an itch and he was my Tuesday night hook-up,” Sojiro said. “What do you want from me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He was delirious until the anti-emetic took hold. He was talking about Akira and the metaverse. Can I assume he’s also one of the Phantom Thieves’ ‘confidants’?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro almost went cross-eyed at the sheer height of that flyover. If Akira hadn’t told her about Maruki he wasn’t about to go around shooting things down. “You could say that,” he relented. “Don’t know him personally though.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Does Akira know he’s here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No. And don’t text him about it either. I know you two exchanged numbers. Just… let me take care of that end myself.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takemi devoted another handful of minutes to her coffee. She reached down and one-handedly began unwrapping the chocolate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro tossed the soiled towel into the bar’s hamper and fished about for things to do that didn’t look like he was trying to escape from her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takemi said, “He’s very sick.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I get that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Moreover, his body is weak. If he were in a hospital or even my clinic, there could be blood tests run to determine what he’s deficient in, but without more targeted treatment it’ll take him longer to improve.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He doesn’t want a hospital.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And I tried to convince him to come to my clinic, once he was cogent enough to hear good advice,” Takemi said. “It seems he feels safer here. Are you sure there’s nothing else I should know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro rescued the half-empty bottle of mixed glass cleaner and debated how far he wanted to go. It was clear from the set of her shoulders and the look in her eyes that she had an idea. Ultimately it really just wasn’t his business to tell. “Had some stuff go down in the metaverse.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For better or worse – probably worse – Takemi didn’t visibly react to this at all. “And your decision to take him in?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He needed help. Don’t make it more than what it is.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Takuto is a good man. I don’t know what landed him here, but whatever it was, I can’t imagine it necessitated a price this high. I would’ve pried more, but he wasn’t in much shape to answer me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you want <em>me</em> to fill you in?” Sojiro swallowed down his irritation at her presumption. “What makes you so sure he didn’t have it coming?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A combination of hunches and data, like any good quack,” Takemi said. “Part of what got him into trouble in the first place was that he invested himself too heavily in his projects. Picking up bills for some clients who were financially suffering, personally appealing to the coaches of student athletes who felt overwhelmed, advocating in person for students to their advisors – he was everywhere. He devotes himself to his work and he’s the collateral damage. You can sell me on a few misdemeanors, but I’m not about to hop on board a train of his villainy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look, why are you telling me all this?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because you just asked.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You, Futaba, even Haruhito for god’s sake – why does everyone keep acting like this is supposed to be my problem? What’s it got to do with me? <em>I don’t know who he is. </em>I met him three times. Why is this suddenly my fire to put out?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My mistake.” Takemi’s tone didn’t change at all in the face of his antagonism. “Am I in your way? You can use this phone here to call the ambulance. Let me just move my things.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“All I’m getting is people telling me how I’m supposed to think without giving me a reason <em>why</em>. This isn’t a hotel. It’s barely even a café most days. I don’t have the resources for this. <em>This isn’t my problem.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takemi was studying him over her mug again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Suddenly embarrassed, frustrated, Sojiro turned his back on her to hide his shame. He aggressively got to work scrubbing the table tops, putting elbow grease into the splashes of coffee.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Takemi said, after far too long a pause to be anything but deliberate, “Is there anything else you needed from me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No,” he muttered. He didn’t look at her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You and Futaba are both doing well? No seasonal allergies I need to treat?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I left his medication and the instructions by his bedside. I’ll trust you to be able to interpret them.” She finished her coffee with a longer drag and set it back on the saucer with a neat ceramic <em>click. </em>“Thank you for the coffee. It was delicious. Narimo, right?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>“It paired impeccably with the chocolates. You have good taste.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“For the record, Sakura-san,” Tae Takemi said, “people assuming that you’ll help them isn’t the same as people taking your kindness for granted. The people in Yongen-Jaya are well-aware of their hometown treasure. How do you think you keep attracting new customers when your hours are so erratic? Businesses with ten times more to offer have died out for less.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I didn’t ask for this.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then call an ambulance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He kept scrubbing. “I’ll follow up tomorrow,” Takemi said, bending to retrieve her satchel. “If you do plan on bringing him to a hospital, I’d like you to do me a favor and call me first. I doubt he has a primary physician, so for the moment I’m going to go ahead and list him as one of mine. It’s not much of a medical history, but I’ve started charts for his blood pressure and vitals, so it’ll at least be something to start with.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What do I owe you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nasal spray, anti-biotics, a house visit, revenue at the clinic lost, diagnosis, out-patient consultation…” Takemi cross-referenced her flip-chart. “Comes to about three free coffees, give or take.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something both warm and miserable kindled in his chest. Sojiro leaned both palms against the table and breathed out slowly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Five,” he said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Surprise flared before her lowered eyebrows could suppress it. “Very well,” she drawled. “And one large plate of curry for a follow-up appointment, I think.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Three meals. With coffee.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You drive a hard bargain, Sakura-san. But I suppose I can settle just this once.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Sojiro murmured as Takemi reached the door. He made himself busy when she looked over her shoulder at him. “I… appreciate it. Sorry I made a fuss. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She had her hand on the door, preventing it from closing. Her gaze was doing that soft thing that women’s faces always did when Sojiro showed an iota of human kindness. He couldn’t tell if it irritated him or encouraged him. Probably neither. “Of all the doorsteps to collapse in, he was lucky it was yours,” Takemi said. “Take care, Sakura-san.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro lifted his hand over his head to wave her off. Once he was sure she was gone from the alley, he locked the door after her and dimmed all but the back security lights by the refrigerator to finish cleaning in peace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The afternoon drizzle had intensified to a steady downpour by the time he reopened. He lost himself in the uptick of takeout orders, meeting customers at the door as they peered into the window under their umbrellas. His usual elderly couple didn’t arrive for their meal at five, but he fielded a call a quarter of an hour later from the husband tentatively asking about pick-up procedures. Sojiro temporarily flipped his sign and delivered their meal out to them instead, packages tucked against his chest to spare them the worst of the runoff from his own dog-eared umbrella.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Yongen-Jaya was nearly deserted by the time he came back. Tired and chilled, Sojiro kept his café open an hour longer to pick up the stragglers as they dragged themselves back from work across the city. When the final trickle had died, he closed up for good and spent the next half hour cleaning the store for the second time that day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba had remained mysteriously but conspicuously silent that day, texting him only once about a package that’d been delivered that afternoon. Store empty and clean, Sojiro balled up his apron into the hamper and wondered what the hell to do. He couldn’t stay here. Futaba would binge on cup noodles and pocky and while it wouldn’t kill her, he didn’t feel like making another store run for cup noodles and pocky in the middle of the week. Normally he might ask her to come on over so he could just feed her from the café, but the downpour was torrential and from the look of the radar, it had no plans to let up until tomorrow morning at the earliest. If he was going to be entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t itching to subject himself to it either.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As if to reaffirm this there was a flash in his peripherals, followed by the immediate growl of thunder so throaty it shook the building. Sojiro listened for any sign of life upstairs, but it’d been dead silent since Takemi had left.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Or just dead. </em>Sojiro gave up. He filled a glass full of water, dimmed the downstairs lights, and headed upstairs to see if there was a corpse in his attic. He flipped the lights at the top of the stairs on as he crested the landing, noting immediately that Takemi had left the window open a crack to help air out the room. Probably less a commentary on the temperature he kept the café and more a commentary on how he needed to pick up a fucking broom once every two years.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki had managed to retain the covers on top of him this time. He didn’t stir when Sojiro set the glass down on the bedside table, breaths congested but steady. Glancing quickly at his face, Sojiro took up the instructions Takemi had left behind and angled them towards the light to squint at him. Anti-emetics three times a day before meals to help keep them down. Antipyretics three times a day for the fever, analgesics every six hours as needed. Nasal spray twice a day, antibiotic once a day in the morning with food. “Dosed you up like an elephant, kid,” Sojiro sighed. He rummaged around Akira’s desk for the dusty tape dispenser and affixed the instructions up next to the bed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki didn’t rouse himself until the back of Sojiro’s hand came to rest between his eyes. Sojiro watched his eyes flinch open, counting the seconds it took for Maruki to locate him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro kept his hand there for a while to think. It was clear the old dose of antipyretics had worn off. Maruki was about as temperate as a dumpster fire. <em>To be taken with food. </em>Did he even have anything in his kitchen suitable for a sensitive stomach? “Is it time for me to go?” Maruki mumbled.</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Sojiro withdrew. He went back downstairs to prepare the bowl and compress, thunking back up with aching calves. He dragged Akira’s desk chair over to sprawl into it, half-tempted to kick off his shoes but figuring the air didn’t need to get any more stale.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki didn’t react at all as Sojiro worked to mop up the fever. Sojiro worked clinically, mind occupied as he went over the information available to him. He could bluster all he want in front of witnesses, but ultimately he was familiar enough with his own weaknesses to know when to accept defeat. There was no way he’d kick a sewer rat out into the torrential rain in this condition, let alone a human. For better or worse, this was a dumpster fire that he’d adopted. Another night – another two nights, even another three nights – wasn’t beyond him. He’d disproved his own hardassery a year ago. Now he was just running off fumes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once Maruki felt cool enough to not incinerate the furniture, Sojiro settled the cloth back into the bowl and got down to business. “Takemi says you got three choices. Here, a hospital, or her clinic. She says you can’t safely get behind a wheel in this condition.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki spoke for the first time. His voice was stripped of inflection. “I have to get back to work.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not one of the choices. You’re gonna have to talk to your boss and work it out. It’s pouring-ass rain outside and I’m not in the mood to cart you over there, so unless you got family willing to come pick you up, you’re staying here until everything cools off. You included.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki said nothing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What did he even have to fix in that refrigerator, Sojiro wondered, still rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. Something bland that wouldn’t hurt coming back up. Curry was out of the question and he was running low on the herbs to make the Chinese medicinal dish. He really should just fall back to the basics and make <em>okayu. </em>He’d done it for Akira on the rare occasions the kid had come down with a cold. It wouldn’t put weight on a hamster but it’d be enough to cradle a few meds.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki watched the rain drown the ambience of Yongen-Jaya in hazy grey smears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro thought of the flood of cheerful chatter that had nearly drowned him in the cab. He listened to the skies brawl it out outside the cocoon of the café. “Thank you.” Maruki spoke unexpectedly, his voice soft. “I wish I hadn’t put you out so much.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re the one you’ve put out. Takemi says you’ve done a number on your body. She put you on a cocktail to get the symptoms under control, but she’ll be checking up on you tomorrow to make sure you’re following instructions. She’s a pistol and she’s got my number, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t give her a fuss.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki again said nothing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro scratched his neck until restlessness had him back up out of his chair and down the stairs. He prepared a basin of cool water as he put the rice on for <em>okayu. </em>Figuring a little flavor would help it go down, he sprinkled it with a smattering of cinnamon and gave it a dash of powdered orange.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was still watching out the window when Sojiro thumped back up the stairs like four asthmatic hippopotami. “Brought you something that should be pretty easy to take down,” Sojiro said, grunting again as he plopped back into the chair. “Should help the meds sit. I brought you up a spoon.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Takemi says she wants you to be drinking a lot more or she’s going to admit you. She wants a full glass to go down your neck with every med you take. I know it’s not optimal, but if you’re having trouble getting down the stairs for the restroom, I’ll bring you up a bucket and something to rinse your hands off in. Better than tumbling spout over kettle down the stairs.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look at me,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He expected a fight, but to his surprise Maruki’s head turned immediately. There was a therapist’s gentle smile on his face. “Thank you,” Maruki said again, before Sojiro could smack it off him. “This is all so very generous, Sakura-san. More than I could ever hope to repay.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro went through a brief catalogue of smiles. He gave the <em>okayu </em>a stir to make sure the spices were wound in and thought about a smile in a rearview mirror. A smile to cloak nerves. A smile of gratitude. A smile to an old woman needing help. A smile meant to placate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Recalling the entire list, only one had felt genuine, and it was the only one Maruki hadn’t yet directed towards him. “Here.” He motioned, and Maruki obediently took the bowl. “Can you manage on your own?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. If you have other things to do, please don’t let me keep you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He didn’t argue. “Eat as much as you can,” he said, and escaped downstairs to whip up something for himself. His main criteria for food at this point was something that either didn’t kill him or that killed him very quickly, so he surrendered to a six day-old bowl of leftover curry from the back of the refrigerator and the rest of the Narimo from the pot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time the evening news was over, his headache of strain was back. He popped two analgesics for himself with a handful of water from the tap, gave it an extra quarter hour to start kicking in, and made his way upstairs for what hopefully was the last time that evening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki had fallen asleep upright against the wall by the window, the bowl of <em>okayu </em>still between his legs. Sojiro glanced into it curtly before taking it, gratified to see Maruki had managed to take down half. He roused Maruki enough to get him to take down his dose, then helped lay him down. After last night’s confusion he didn’t want to dim the lights completely, so he relocated Akira’s lamp to the opposite end of the room to avoid shining the nightlight in Maruki’s eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was still awake when Sojiro came back for the last time. His eyes were narrow and tired as they focused out the window without their glasses, the back of his hand resting on his forehead as if to shield himself from the rain. “How’s it sitting,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It took Maruki a long moment to speak. Just when Sojiro thought he was going to blow him off, Maruki murmured at last, “Very well. It was delicious. Thank you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No need to go overboard. It was just <em>okayu.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Still. It was very good. Have you made it before?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Used to make it all the time for Futaba. She’d get stomachaches from pigging down too much junk food. She’d complain the whole time she was eating it, but she’d scrape her plate clean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s huff was almost a chuckle, but his expression didn’t change. Tired and distant. “Strong girl.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro considered everything. It was time to go home and cook animals and hopefully several plants for that strong girl. She’d been weirdly patient with him that day, but he knew patience usually came with caveats and an expiration date. Mostly he just needed to justify to himself that it was fine to leave dumpster fires in the rearview mirror for a while. Eventually they either went out on their own or attracted the attention of someone more qualified.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He scratched the back of his head and made his decision. He went downstairs to grab one of his older cleaning buckets and slid the handle over his inner elbow as he filled a basin. He delivered those upstairs and backtracked to bring up some senbei crackers and a jug of water. “I won’t force you, but I don’t want you navigating the stairs by yourself if you can avoid it,” he said, setting the supplies on Akira’s desk. “Gotta pee, do it in the bucket. Anything else, scoot yourself down on your backside so I don’t come in tomorrow morning to see your neck broken at the bottom. Leaving my house number on the desk if there’s an emergency, but if you think you’re in real trouble, stop being a pain in the ass and just call an ambulance.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thank you.” Maruki was back to studying the window. “You’ve been so generous, Sakura-san. I’m sorry I can’t repay you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Told you not to worry about it. Get some sleep. Takemi’ll come in tomorrow and see what’s up with you. Until then, keep covered up. And shut the damn window if the draft gets any worse. Last thing I need is rot up here to deal with.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll make sure to shut it. Thank you, Sakura-san, for everything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Years later, Sojiro still wouldn’t be exactly sure what’d cued him in. He’d gotten to the stairs and had already taken two of them down when something in the back of his mind flickered, brief as a spark from a lighter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He paused with his hand still on the top of the shelf to look over his shoulder. Maruki’s head was leaning against the wall, his hands curled upright atop his thighs. Still-damp hair from the compress curled in parentheses over his forehead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro slowly let go of the shelf and turned. Thunder vibrated in the stairs under his feet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He said, “You gonna do something stupid to yourself if I leave?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki watched the rain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched his gaze eventually flit away. It roamed down the wall, across the desk, down to the bed, before finally finding him from across the room. The smile was regretful and human and only one of two genuine smiles Sojiro had seen on his face so far.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I haven’t decided yet,” Takuto Maruki admitted weakly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>~^~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>He texted Futaba to let her know about the pudding he’d hidden in the back of the fridge and to make sure she got herself in bed at an hour that didn’t invite scrutiny from child welfare services. The TV was scrolling flash-flood warnings across the screen by the time he was finished with all his preparations for the night; Sojiro scrounged for his painter’s tarp and shot her off more instructions to bunch a towel in front of their door and set up one of their trashcans under the leak in their ceiling if she hadn’t already. Once he’d spread the tarp out over the floor, he braved the downpour to rescue his outdoor plants, shaking them free of water as best he could before settling them on the canvas. His washed-out sidewalk sign came next, then his table, until all of Leblanc’s trappings were safely inside with him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He untucked his dishtowel from the refrigerator handle to scrub his hair dry as he set about locking up. Using another of Futaba’s bright yellow sticky notes, he cleanly markered on tomorrow’s date and stuck it center-mass on the ‘CLOSED’ side of the sign before turning it out to face the street. It’d been so long since he’d lowered the blinds over the door that a shower of dust assaulted him when he pulled the cord. He blinked it off his lashes as he fumbled with the slats, then attended to the windows with the same result. When he was done, Leblanc stood completely shuttered from the outside world for the first time since it’d opened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s pain meds knocked him out for the first several hours. He woke when it was time to administer the nasal spray and the fever-reducer, listlessly submitting to the full glass of water Sojiro insisted on chasing them down with. He was vomiting into his bucket thirty minutes later, clinging to the bedside table with a white-knuckled hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro rinsed out the bucket downstairs and called Takemi on the emergency line she’d left him to see if he should re-administer the dose. “<em>No, it’s been absorbed through his stomach already if it’s been a half an hour,</em>” she said. “<em>It’s probably stress. See if he can keep some rice down and feed him an anti-emetic.</em> <em>Call me if he vomits again.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Time passed by under the percussion of the storm. Lulled by repetition in general, Sojiro gradually lost all sense of context. Maruki slept fitfully, alternating between a fetal position and full body thrashing that at one point knocked Sojiro’s glasses off his face. Sojiro forced down an anti-emetic and filled the basin up to work on keeping Maruki cool as Maruki calmly, deliriously explained why Sojiro should let him die. He explained that he would make it very unmessy as Sojiro coaxed down lukewarm bites of <em>okayu </em>and reassured him under the compress that he would walk out of Leblanc first before dying so it wouldn’t incriminate any of them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki ended up drifting somewhere after midnight, blankets clutched in his fist as he curled against the wall. Sojiro retreated downstairs to make himself some grave-delaying coffee and switched on the news to give himself something else to listen to. When he tried to phone up Futaba to check on her, she refused to pick up but did stack eleven thumbs-up emojis atop each other in rapid succession in his messages.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro paced. He smoked and then he didn’t, snuffing out the cigarette before the smoke could trail upstairs. He sat at the table where Akira had used to study and braced his elbows atop the scarred surface to scratch his temples until they stung.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Wakaba. </em>The segmented shadow of the blinds warmed and then faded as a bike light passed by outside, throwing a sheet of water up against the base of his door. He could picture her no-nonsense shark grin across the table from him but otherwise didn’t have the wherewithal to summon up what she might have done in his situation. Somewhere along the line Wakaba the person had faded into the collection of colorful, scented fractals people swept up and kept as mementos after a loved one’s death.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro filled a glass and watered Akira’s plant. The space heater fuel was running low. He topped it off and then went back downstairs to find a rag to wipe the dust off the shelves. What had used to be a space time didn’t touch now seemed to move and breathe and change wherever he looked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He made a last trip downstairs to grab the book he stored under the counter and re-settled himself in the chair. He sat his phone on the bed stand and for a while sat with his attention poised out the window, index finger marking his spot in the pages. Yongen-Jaya lay smothered and muted, interspersed with commercial lights and apartment windows opening and shutting their eyes in the gloom. Stagnation that moved like a pulse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>~^~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I dreamed last spring,” Maruki said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro had been drifting. He blinked himself back to focus on the dust motes in the spill of lamplight. “I don’t remember when it started.” Maruki’s eyes were on the ceiling, half-hidden under the splay of his fingers. It was the first coherent thing he’d spoken in almost two hours. “I don’t even know if it had anything resembling a start or an end. It was primordial. It was composed of all essence. Fear, wonder. Light and dark. Sound and silence. I knew I’d seen it before but I couldn’t tell where. All I knew was that once it was inside my head -- once I saw it for what it was – I couldn’t unsee it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The scent from the windows was heady. Sodden earth and steam curling from roof tiles. Sojiro’s book was tented open atop his knee. He shifted on reflex to get Maruki some more water and realized the pitcher was empty.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For a moment, suspended between realities, he had the crazy thought to open the window and stick the pitcher outside to refill it. “Have you ever had such a dream, Sakura-san?” Maruki said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can’t say I have.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I thought the world had changed while I was sleeping,” Maruki said. “But the longer I lived in that new world, the more I realized it wasn’t the world that had changed – it was my <em>cognition</em> of that world. In that moment falling became flying. The wall that had separated life from death now seemed no more substantial than a ribbon across a doorway. Everything that I’d thought was intangible were suddenly a million threads I could weave with my own hands. For the first time I could see things not only as they were, but everything that <em>could </em>be, outside the laws of physics. A world that could be fashioned to facilitate salvation instead of suffering.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched Maruki splay a shaking hand above his face, fingers outstretched as if to brace the ceiling away from falling on him. “It sounds insane, doesn’t it,” Maruki said. “A dream that can shape reality.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What would you have done? Knowing the world could be remade with a strong enough will, and that will was your own? What if you’d known the only way to ease suffering was to build back the world from the ground-up?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro felt so old he was new. Clear skies and thunder both in his head. He watched the window and tried to remember where and when he was. “It’s true: it is insane,” Maruki said. “I think I already knew at that point I’d passed the last bend. But it was worse than that. What I’d found – what <em>he </em>had shown me – was how permeable everything was. How pain and pleasure warp memory until it no longer resembles anything it once was. Reality means nothing, Sakura-san. It disappears when we do. We have no way of definitively proving that the past exists. As far as we’re concerned, historical figures and storybook characters are one in the same. All that separates them is how we choose to engage with them. We live a life balanced on intangibles.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro had half a mind to get the water. He found he couldn’t move. Sitting there, an unintentionally willing captive in someone else’s headspace, he realized he’d forgotten what up and down were supposed to look like.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I had a dream that the world would be set on fire,” Maruki Takuto said. “I’d already watched it in another time. Humanity itself collapsed to ash. The one who’d set it on fire had said that there was nothing to be done. It’d already been written. The only thing that I could change was when.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He handed me the flame. No match, no kindling. The fire itself sat on my hand like a bird.” Maruki’s fingers curled a little towards his palm. “It didn’t hurt. I knew the instant I let it go, everything would go up around me. I had no idea how long I was supposed to hold it. I didn’t know if it would let me stand there and do nothing or if it’d wait until I fell asleep to escape. All I knew was that once I let it go, everything would burn.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched Maruki’s other hand slowly lift until both palms were braced towards a ceiling above his reach. Holding up the sky. “I thought about my dream then,” Maruki said. “If the world had to be set ablaze – if it’d already been written – what if I instead changed my cognition of that world? If I became that world, I would be the only thing that would burn. Any suffering that any god could dream up would have no choice but to come straight to me. So I swallowed it. It hurt this time – worse than any pain I’ve ever felt. It burned the heart out of me. Every drop of blood. I screamed and nobody heard it. People kept passing by. Rain fell and didn’t touch me. I burned and burned and nobody saw me burn, and I …”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s voice broke for the first time. Sojiro saw him blink rapidly towards his hands. The room felt sodden with rain and wood smoke. “I opened my eyes and everyone was smiling,” Maruki said. “Nothing was in flames. The trees were growing. Blue skies and the smell of damp grass after a storm. It was like hurt had just… disappeared. All it’d taken was a flex of willpower, and I’d rerouted all the suffering in the world. <em>I had swallowed pain</em>, and the only one who remembered what it felt like to burn to pieces was me. And I was fine with that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro felt like air wasn’t reaching his chest. It took him a long, disembodied eternity to realize what he was feeling was terror.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why couldn’t he have let go of my hand,” Maruki said. Both palms came down to rest against his eyes, hard enough to blanche the skin around them, and then he was weeping – soft, rasping breaths that cinched straight up from his toes. “Why couldn’t Akira have <em>just let me burn.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>~^~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba came in a half hour later, bundled up in a yellow parka and lugging an overnight bag. Sojiro was back down to refill the water pitcher and jotting down reminders to himself for the following morning. He glanced up as she shouldered the door closed behind her, shoving her key back into her pocket and discarding her umbrella off to the side without collapsing it. She stood there, quaking and nonverbal, eyes fixed on the floor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The jagged edges in him softened. He set aside the pen with a deliberate motion he could see her hawkishly track in her peripherals. “Did you lock up?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She nodded. She took her glasses off and rubbed the back of her wrist across both eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He fished up the usual blanket from the leftmost corner under the counter and fit it into the nearest bench. She curled into herself like a cat as he sat in the booth across from her with coffee and a crossword he didn’t bother untangling. He let the sound of the rain prickle sensation across his skin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he stood to return upstairs nearly a half hour later, Futaba whispered, breathless and pinched in her own shadow, “<em>Sojiro</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He sat back down. She curled her legs up tighter and bit out increasingly panicked little puffs against the inside of her wrist until he moved to sit beside her. She squiggled around in her cocoon until she was resting against him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He rubbed a thumb into the hair behind her ear, slow and rhythmic, watching the clock navigate the rest of the hour. When her panic faded she was left leaden against him, hand fisted in his suit jacket as she slept.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro leaned the back of his head against the headrest and closed his eyes slowly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he could manage to move without splintering, he untangled himself, settled her back into her cocoon, and went back upstairs to watch the world burn.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>~^~</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sakamoto came by the next morning and prowled out in the rain like a tomcat until Sojiro let him in. “Woah,” Sakamoto said, registering the shuttered emptiness with a blink. “Who died?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the hell have I told you about traipsing over here during rainstorms, idiot?” Sojiro snapped. “You <em>want</em> a repeat of last time?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hey, that was a fluke. Look, I wore a raincoat and brought an umbrella and everything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba was still balled up in the seat under her blanket and camouflaged under Sojiro’s jacket. “You’re getting a hot drink down your neck,” Sojiro said. He threw Ryuji a dish towel and motioned impatiently towards the bar as he started up the kettle. “Dry off so you’re not splattering all over my floor.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You sure?” Ryuji brightened anyway, scrubbing his hair perfunctorily before slinging the towel over his neck. He swung himself onto the stool like a rancher mounting a horse. “I mean I won’t turn you down, no mistake, but I ain’t really here for that if it’s too much trouble.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It <em>is trouble</em>, which is why I keep telling you not to come over here when it’s raining hogs and asses out there!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s typhoon season, Boss. If I let a little rain stop me, I’d be cooped up in that house for a month.” Ryuji braced his forehead against his palm and grinned crazily at the bar. “<em>Hogs and asses. </em>That’s so great. <em>Hogs and effin’ asses.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pipe down. Dry off your hair.” Sojiro felt cobbled together with kindling and coffee grounds. He glanced brusquely over to the door as he got down his cacao beans. “Where the girlfriend?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She’s at a shoot. Apparently they’re making a ‘rainy day’ catalogue thingy and they’re taking advantage of the shitty weather. Dunno, she wasn’t all that pumped about it, so I didn’t press her about it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re not there with her?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hell no, are you kidding? It’s wet out there, man.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro counted to fifteen and went to fetch the cream from the refrigerator. “Anyways, reason I’m over here is for this.” Ryuji reached down by his feet and slung up a thoroughly knotted plastic bag Sojiro hadn’t seen him lug in. “The group’s getting stuff together to send Akira a care package. I figured I’d drop by and see if you wanted in. It’s cheaper than sending like, five different ones or whatever, and this way we could all pitch in to ship one.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro squinted over at him dryly. “The group, huh.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I mean, mayyybe it was Ann’s and my idea,” Ryuji said. “But the others would’ve thought of it if we hadn’t. We just got a jump on it first.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And what makes you think I haven’t already been sending my own?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Have you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro clattered around the kitchen until he remembered he was trying to let Futaba sleep. He settled for making his back look as pissy as possible. “Anyway, Ann’s been on me to get it done, so I thought I’d use my time today to, you know,” Ryuji said. “It’s harder getting the gang together now with everybody spreading out, and once summer’s over it’s gonna be harder to get a hold of Ann, so. Strike while the iron’s hot sorta thing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You guys talk about that? The long-distance stuff, I mean.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji’s hands were on the table. He slid the towel out from behind his neck and wrapped his fists up gently in it, slow and methodical. “Can’t just sit on it and expect it to work, kid,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’re not. I mean,” Ryuji said, and stopped. “I mean, we’ve sorta had practice. Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro poured the cacao beans into the grinder and closed the lid. “I know, uh.” Ryuji twisted the towel a bit more, taking a visibly deep breath. “Look, Boss, I know you’re still not a hundred percent on… on all this, but—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t care.” That was a fucking lie. Sojiro kept his back on Ryuji, using the noise from the bean grinder to give himself a moment to rephrase. He decided to shoot straight. “Listen, maybe I’m just old-fashioned, and maybe I may not… completely <em>‘get’ </em>it, but while I didn’t exactly approve at first—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Boss—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t interrupt. I may not get it, but at the end of the day it isn’t my business. What <em>is </em>my business is whether or not you’re treating my kid right. As long as you two don’t hurt him – that’s all I ask. That’s all I want.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji kept his gaze on the towel.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro brought the water to a boil and added the ground cacao in with the rest of the ingredients to make Jamaican hot chocolate. Ryuji had recovered enough to give him a sheepish half-smile when Sojiro thunked the mug down on a coaster in front of him. “You really sounded like a dad just now,” Ryuji said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I am a dad.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s nice. Sometimes I sorta forget. You know? There are good dads out there. That’s all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro took the towel from him and turned his back to clean up his supplies. He didn’t have a crisis mostly because he didn’t have time or energy for it. “So, uh,” Ryuji said from behind him. “I wasn’t gonna ask, but… kinda sorta couldn’t help but notice Futaba balled up over there. Everything okay?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Had a rough night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Anything I can do?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro was keenly aware of the silence upstairs. He kept scrubbing the stain on the counter until it lifted. “It’s nothing anyone can fix. Just gotta give it time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sure there’s nothing? I can always call up Ann or Makoto.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro considered it. He tossed the towel on the counter and gave up subterfuge. He leaned against the refrigerator and closed his eyes to knead them. “Wow, that bad, huh,” Ryuji said. “Sorta feel like a dick for coming over unannounced now.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t have to feel bad about that,” Sojiro said gruffly. “Just wish you’d quit swimming over here in shorts during rainstorms. Your mother’s going to have my head.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She kinda won’t shut up about what a good influence you are, actually. It’s getting kind of annoying. Swear you could probably saw off my leg at this point and she’d thank you for teaching me about life’s hardships or whatever.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro hid a smile behind his hand. He kept rubbing. “Well, I won’t pry or nothing,” Ryuji said. “But if you need me, or Futaba needs me, just let me know. I’m probably the closest at this point now that Makoto’s moved out of her sister’s place. I can always bop over here and play videogames with her or whatever. You got my number, just use it whenever.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Thanks.” He was honest. “I appreciate it. I know she will too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji gathered the mug up in one hand and pushed the bag across the counter with the other. Sojiro got to work. He got out his to-go packets and began measuring out beans, taking care to label them before sealing them shut. “Woah, Blue Mountain?” Ryuji said, peering over at his work. “You seriously sending that pricey stuff? He’s gonna flip.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He’s earned it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hope his dick parents won’t snatch it. He’s gonna have to hide it under his mattress or something.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro considered this briefly, pencil pausing. He erased it and wrote, <em>Electric Blue Cat Piss. </em>“There we go,” Ryuji laughed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Want you to hurry up and go home after you finish that.” Sojiro pointed his elbow at Ryuji’s mug as he searched for a takeout box to store the packets in. “Take a shower and for god’s sake don’t wade anywhere else in this weather. They say the worst is still to come.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Feels kinda apocalyptic, doesn’t it? All this rain all of a sudden. It was so sunny a few days ago. It’s like this came outta nowhere.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s just the way it goes this time of year.” Sojiro looked around the shop, suddenly seized with an ugly sort of longing. What he really wanted was to pack up the entire goddamn shop and ship it. He wanted to send a prepaid empty box for Akira to stuff himself into in order to ship himself back. There just wasn’t enough worldly packing tape to make either happen. The look in Akira’s eyes as he’d left had haunted Sojiro into weeks of sleepless nights. Sending coffee and Leblanc pastries wasn’t enough. What Akira needed was to wake up every morning to hot curry and coffee and someone who gave a shit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji was working on the dregs out of his mug with his forefinger. “Hey,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji looked at him inquisitively, biting at his knuckle to mop up the sugar. “How often you in contact with Akira?” Sojiro asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pretty much every day. He likes me to check in after physical therapy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He mention anything to you about… all that stuff?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What stuff.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You know.” Sojiro waved an aimless, impatient finger overhead. “All that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, the metaverse stuff? Not really. It’s not his style.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What does he talk to you about?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Honestly? Kind of nothing,” Ryuji said. “I think he doesn’t want to worry us. He mostly just keeps it light. Inconsequential crap, you know? Like sewing and knitting and cooking and stuff. He sends me pictures of the park that’s by him sometimes. Birds and shit.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And Ann?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We’re usually on a three-way text, so most of what I get, she gets, ‘less it’s something personal. Why? What’s up.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro shook his head. He found a container he could afford to sacrifice and lined it with the packets of beans, then sealed it shut. “Hey, thanks,” Ryuji said, taking it from him when Sojiro held it out. “Want to send a note or whatever?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll text him later. He’ll know those are from me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Roger.” Ryuji loaded it back into the plastic bag and re-knotted it. When he stood, Sojiro noticed he kept a hold of the counter until he could stabilize the weight on his leg. “Say hi to Futaba for me when she wakes up, okay?” Ryuji said. “Let her know I dropped by.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I will.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Ryuji slung the bag over his shoulder, anchoring it with his forefinger as he clumsily bent to retrieve his umbrella.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched his eyes flit over the café and linger on the stairs. There was something a little sharp in them, and for a moment Ryuji appeared to hesitate. He scuffed his foot along the floor, chewed on it a little, and then visibly let it go. “G’night, Boss.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s morning, idiot.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“For some of us,” Ryuji laughed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro made himself coffee with the remaining hot water. Futaba didn’t wake when he sat across from her. He let her sleep, rescuing the crossword puzzle from the previous night and finally attending to it, allowing the TV to remain off so he could immerse himself in the static of rain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By the time Futaba finally stirred, Sojiro’s own eyes had begun to grow heavy. He had to blink himself back when she partially propped herself up, hand flailing out of the cocoon of her blankets to pad around the table. “Left,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her fingers tapped until they found the saucer. She stole his coffee mug with a serpentine snap, head emerging so she could greedily gulp it. “It’s cold,” she rasped, offended, shoving it back towards him so quickly it almost tipped.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course it is, I poured it an hour ago.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How can you drink cold coffee? It’s so nasty.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You think most coffee is nasty anyway. I don’t know what you expected.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I smelled chocolate and thought maybe you’d grown tastebuds or something! How was I supposed to know you’d bait and switch me?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How do you feel,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba lifted up the rest of the way. Her glasses had been discarded on the edge of the table by the napkin holder the previous night; she now shook off the blanket until it rested loosely around her ribs, unfolding the frames with one-handed dexterity and shoving them on her nose. “You don’t have to stay here,” Sojiro said preemptively. “I’ve got control of the situation. If it makes you uncomfortable—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba shook her head. “I want to see him.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’d halfway expected it but still felt an unpleasant jolt in his stomach. He took a deep breath. “Futaba—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba, you’re not ready.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t get to decide that,” she said, and as always the truth made another part of Sojiro twinge, quick as a wayward bolt of static. “I thought it over last night. I want to go up with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He’s still sick. He needs sleep.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He hasn’t coughed since last night. If he took Takemi’s medicine, he’s either dead or nearing 70% regeneration. There is zero in-between,” Futaba said. “I need to go up. I <em>need </em>to. This isn’t an option.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“How much did you hear last night?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba didn’t meet his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro tried to hide his sigh into his coffee before remembering the mug was empty. He set it back down and stood up with a grunt. His bones hurt. “Please,” Futaba said, smaller.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He’d apparently called her bluff. “I just don’t know if it’s good for either of you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll stand by the stairs. I’ll just watch.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sure you will.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I <em>will.</em> Don’t make fun of me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not making fun of you, I’m looking out for you. It’s my job. You know that, right? Even if you saved the world, you’re still <em>my </em>world to save. That doesn’t change just because you… you pilot UFOs and take down mobsters in your spare time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You can’t just say sappy things like that,” Futaba said crossly, rubbing the inside of her wrist under her eyes to wall herself off from him. “It’s not playing fair. <em>Dad.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m just saying.” Though that knocked the wind out of him because of course it did. It did every time. It’s why she did it. He had to hide his sentimentality in the dirty dishes at the sink for a while until he could compose himself. Perhaps understanding that the next decision directly relied on it, Futaba was ready by the time Sojiro was ready to face her. She was standing beside the booth now, blanket discarded, posture rigid but hands deliberately relaxed out of their fists. It took her a moment to find his eyes, but once she did she didn’t let go. Her chin hiked up to punctuate the effort.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He compared her to the nonverbal vision of her a year ago. He was still comparing as he gathered his supplies: a refilled water pitcher, a fresh towel, crackers and the slices of leftover fruit from the refrigerator that he’d sliced last night. He heard her little feet traipse like an elephant’s up behind him as they both ascended the stairs and he didn’t stop her. She’d already known he wouldn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was on his stomach in the bed, arm tucked around his pillow. He stirred more readily than he had earlier that morning, drowsily blinking himself up from sleep when Sojiro lowered himself down into the chair by his bed. “I didn’t mean to make you close your café,” Maruki rasped. “This is costing you money.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Must be feeling better if you’re already back to nagging me about my store.” Sojiro helped him sit up without a lot of introduction. “Takemi says you have to take these doses down with food. Can you manage on your own this time?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes. Thank you.” Maruki hid behind his wrist for a moment. Despite his original skepticism of Futaba’s prognosis, Sojiro could admit to being taken aback by the medication’s efficacy. Maruki had been in six separate time zones the previous night and now merely seemed exhausted, if loopy from nasal spray. He focused on Sojiro with effort once he lowered his arm. “Was there someone here earlier? I thought I heard someone else’s voice.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The Sakamoto kid. Just came to pick some stuff up. He left a while ago.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was quiet a moment. “Does he know I’m here?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, but he knows something’s up. He’s not a dumb kid,” Sojiro said. “Just got a loud mouth. What, you wanted me to hide it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s voice was weak. “It’s just a bit of a slap across the face, that’s all.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look, I’m not playing cloak and dagger with you or anyone else. You needed help and I was here to give it. I don’t have time for the rest of the crap. Come on, eat up.” Sojiro gestured to the plate and Maruki took it reluctantly. “Get it down. You’re late for your next dose and I don’t want her getting up in my grill about messing up your treatment. She’s already annoyed you’re not in a clinic.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Takemi-san said that?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Whatever else you are, Takemi apparently thinks enough of you to vouch for you. You must’ve made a good impression.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Takemi-san.” Maruki’s voice had dropped to a murmur. He ate the slice of apple methodically, eyes straying as he visibly mulled the information.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro saw the exact moment where Maruki spotted Futaba at the stairs. Every ounce of color he’d gained from sleep was lanced out of his face. He dropped the plate into his lap as his eyes went wide with terror. “Yo,” Futaba said. Sojiro could hear a note of surprised glee at the visceral reaction. “’Sup Doc.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba,” Sojiro sighed. He rescued the plate and set it on the bed stand. “Play nice or get lost.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba-san,” Maruki breathed. Sojiro saw his muscles start to twitch towards the window.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So. I got questions,” Futaba said. She advanced across the room and climbed without any fucking preamble whatsoever onto Akira’s desktop, crossing her skinny legs underneath her. She propped her elbow up on one of them and leaned her chin onto her fist, staring at Maruki with soulless fish eyes. “Sojiro said you were in pretty rough shape last night, but he’s naïve to the ways of the meta-medical world. I’m thinking Takemi’s illegal meds knocked all the status effects out of you at this point. You and I both know that makes you fair game. Agreed?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro was about to intercede, but something in Maruki’s face stopped him. Maruki was still staring at Futaba with colorless dread, but something behind his eyes had shifted as he’d watched her situate herself. Futaba patiently permitted the scrutiny, unfazed, attention laser-focused on her victim. “Futaba-san.” Maruki was still rough. He cleared his throat gently. His hands gathered in his lap, fingers briefly tangling and then uncrossing. “I’m sorry, I suppose I wasn’t—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Expecting me? You kinda should have,” Futaba said. “You know I keep a close watch on Sojiro. You may have picked up on this already, but he’s <em>really </em>into picking up strays. I mean, just look at me. If <em>my </em>mess didn’t scare him off, there’s no telling what he’ll sluice up off the streets.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Futaba</em>,” Sojiro growled.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh come on, don’t get your apron in a bunch, you know it’s true. But we’re not here to examine your bad habits.” Futaba leaned forward a bit to angle her other elbow atop her other knee. “I’ve had a pretty long time to think, Doc. And if you know as much about the inside of my head as I think you do, you know that ‘a long time’ for me is like, three times as long as it is for a normal person, which means I’m <em>real </em>tired of chewing on it. So I’m thinking, you’re awake, and we’re both here, and I’m soooort of not the type to mince words so I’m just gonna go for it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched Maruki compose himself in fractals. He tried to straighten against his pillows, seemed to recognize dignity was a futile effort, and gave up to simply cross his hands in his lap. Sojiro saw the doctor persona emerge and decay in the same breath. Maruki’s eyes roamed his knees for a while.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he looked up his expression was both gentle and resigned. “What can I do for you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, that’s kind of a whole basket of fries,” Futaba said. “Got three bullet points for you. They have to do with the metaverse.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s eyes immediately flitted to Sojiro. “Don’t worry, he knows all about that,” Futaba said. “Well, mostly about it. He doesn’t <em>quite </em>know exactly how many times we were all on the brink of a violent grisly death, but I’ll tell him when he gets older and can handle R ratings.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Would you stop needling me?” Sojiro snapped. “For god’s sake, what did we <em>just</em> talk about? You said you’d come up and stay quiet by the stairs!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I lied to your face,” Futaba said. “But in my defense I kind of have to to get anything done. In terms of parenting you’re sort of like this pink bearded drone instead of a helicopter.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro was half out of his seat to have a much needed and very immediate conversation somewhere else when Maruki’s soft interjection stopped him. “It’s all right, Sakura-san.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You stay out of this,” Sojiro said. “This has nothing to do with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I think I can guess what she’s here for. I know I’m no longer qualified to dispense an opinion, but if you’d forgive me for speaking out… that is, if I’m right, I think it’ll be beneficial for her to hear those answers from me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro eyeballed Futaba. She seemed to sense that she’d pushed him a bit too far, because she looked down at her knees to avoid his frown, thumbing at her ankle bone. “Fine,” Sojiro said, sitting back down. “But I’m staying right here. And I reserve the right to put a stop to this if it gets out of hand.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba-san.” Maruki directed his next words towards her. “Please go ahead. I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba took a moment to regroup her momentum. She pushed her glasses back up on her nose and held up her index finger, a bit less aggressively than the first time. “Question one,” she said. “I need to know if you were holding back during that battle.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Which battle.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The one we were all in. Not the one you and Akira slapped at each other like pre-teen girls.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, see, already I feel like you’re not being straight-up with me,” Futaba said. “I’m the Phantom Thieves scouter and I knew for a fact just how close that battle was. If Joker hadn’t had that ridiculously souped-up Shiji-Ouji we would’ve lost mid-game. I had to work overtime just to keep them on their feet, and that was <em>on top </em>of scanning. It took just about everything I had and I slept for like a week afterwards.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I never took any pleasure in the violence. I was fighting to keep my dream alive, but it was also the dream I wanted to forge for you. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to use lethal force. It went against the purpose of my mission.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you <em>were</em> holding back,” Futaba said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was silent. “Why not just take out our leader and let the rest of us fall like a house of cards?” Futaba asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Because I was fighting to actualize his dreams too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Isn’t sacrificing one guy worth it if you can make the rest of the world happy?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m afraid I don’t subscribe to that philosophy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Lie,” Futaba said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Even if I had the stomach to single out a single person to sacrifice, Akira’s wishes were so unselfish I could never bring myself to deny them. It’s why I fought so hard to actualize them. All of his most fervent wishes were for all of you to be happy. He wanted Akechi-kun to live, he wanted Shiho’s assault erased, he wanted Sakamoto-kun to run again. The only dream he kept for himself – his only selfish wish – was to be adopted and be able to stay here forever. It was thing I hoped to give him most.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sidebar: turns out he didn’t really need your help for that,” Futaba said. “Sojiro is snipping a whole bunch of red tape right now to do just that. Even if it doesn’t happen when Akira is a minor, it’s gonna happen when he’s an adult. It’s just a bureaucratic waiting game.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I heard.” Maruki was still gentle. “It’s wonderful news.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And he accomplished it <em>without </em>mega mind-controlling sorcerer metaverse juju, which was kind of the whole point we were making in there,” Futaba said. “But end sidebar: that doesn’t matter. You still lied. Don’t you think we knew what was going to happen to you if you got your way? You said you weren’t going to make Rumi love you again even though you had the power for it. You’re <em>way </em>more cutthroat than you pretend to be.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Of course I was willing to sacrifice for my cause. That isn’t martyrdom or even altruism,” Maruki said. “Actualizing other people’s dreams <em>is </em>what makes me happy. I can afford a few sacrifices on the side to see that everyone comes out better for it. I knew Rumi would be happier without me, and that fact <em>did </em>make me happy.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba studied him for a long time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For his part, Sojiro found himself immersed in Maruki’s responses. His interactions thus far with Maruki had mostly either been surface-level or unflattering or both. Seeing him discuss cognitive ideology and world domination with his teenage daughter while barely being able to hold an upright position on the bed left the situation feeling cock-eyed and surreal. “Fine,” Futaba said abruptly. “Not <em>exactly </em>satisfied, but you answered the question. Fair enough. Number two.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki waited. “I want to know if you and my mother knew each other,” Futaba said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wakaba-san was mostly outside my sphere of access. We dabbled under similar umbrellas – metaphysics, psience, behavioral therapy – but she had already established herself in the department well before I’d gotten there. She was something of a child prodigy: she’d already begun her research at the age of seventeen. My studies were more diversified and for the most part kept me out of her direct orbit. I specialized in occupational therapy for neuro-divergent students for my undergraduate degree and spent a lot of my time after that in primarily academic circles.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So you just vacuumed up an entire metaphysical branch of cognitive therapy because you were bored?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I picked it up because I thought it would be useful in improving my patients’ quality of life,” Maruki said. “Learning new things was never the issue for me – it was applying them in a tangible way that saw real-world results. Memorization, research, even data sets… it’s all theoretical. It only starts mattering when it starts making a difference.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Huh.” Futaba’s eyes stayed glued on him for a while. “So you weren’t really in the know about her death.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m afraid not. I did… suffer some of the same consequences she suffered, academically speaking, but no one tried to hurt me personally.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You got your research stolen by Shido. I remember that. I wonder why he didn’t kill you too.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“To be honest, I’ve thought about that often,” Maruki said. “I can only surmise that he felt he needed to keep at least one researcher alive just in case a twist in the metaverse necessitated expert guidance. He was fairly sure he had it figured out, but he’s not the type to charge recklessly. If something in the metaverse had changed in a way that impeded his work, he knew very well he wouldn’t be able to understand it without someone familiar with the psience. My guess is that he took stock of his team of researchers, assessed our risk levels, and eliminated the ones he thought would pose the most threat.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Like my mom,” Futaba said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s gaze dropped back to his knees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba took several long, even breaths. Not exactly happy with the trajectory of the conversation, Sojiro nevertheless held off on intervening for now, trusting her to know her own limits. “I think I might have a few follow-ups later, but for the most part I think there’s just one more thing I need answered,” Futaba said. “And it’s probably the most important one, so I <em>really </em>need you to be up front with this one.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki was silent a moment longer. “All right.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba straightened to let her legs slide over the edge of the desk. She then gripped the edge with her hands and leaned forward to skewer Maruki with a look so intense it bordered on comical. What she said wasn’t. “I want to know why you didn’t attack me in the metaverse with Adam Kadmon.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This caught Sojiro completely off-guard. He felt himself jerk, gaze automatically shifting to Maruki. In contrast Maruki didn’t seem surprised by the question. He shifted his gaze to look out the window, taking in and letting out the same even breath. His hands remained clasped in his lap. “Because let’s be real,” Futaba said. “Adam Kadmon… it was a monster. A god. The strongest persona ever conceived in the metaverse. It was so massive it <em>wrinkled time. </em>And that came from <em>your </em>head. I could feel you scouting me the same time I scouted you. You knew our weaknesses, our strengths – even our fears. You could see everything we tried to engineer in your world.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki didn’t respond.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba scooted closer. Sojiro could sense every cell in her body sub-atomically focus on Maruki’s response. The intensity was truly off-putting and for an odd moment Sojiro found himself feeling sorry for him. “I told Sojiro the truth,” Futaba said. “You didn’t lay a finger on me with Adam Kadmon, but it’s not like you didn’t fight Ann or Makoto or Haru. The only one not to walk away from that brawl with bruises was me. I want to know why.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki finally spoke, but very softly. “You weren’t in the fight.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah, I think we both know that’s not true,” she said. “I was the <em>lynchpin </em>in that fight. Akira might have a swiss army knife arsenal of gods and demons in his head, but in that metaverse? <em>I’m </em>the demon god. I can see everything inside of Prometheus. And you <em>knew </em>it. All it would’ve taken to cripple us was to knock me out of commission so I couldn’t feed them your weaknesses. It wouldn’t even have taken much. What I want to know is why you didn’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I didn’t want to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not good enough,” Futaba said. “Doc, you were prepared to go toe to toe against the entire planet. You were willing to rewrite time itself. But you couldn’t slap one glowing cue ball out of the sky to get it done?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro found himself as transfixed as Futaba. Maruki at long last shifted, but it ended up merely being to break the doctor persona. He leaned, slow as falling asleep, to rest his head against the wall. “Why,” Futaba said. “Tell me the truth. <em>Why didn’t you attack me.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki said, very tiredly and without inflection, “Because the first time we met, you already trusted me not to hurt your heart.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro felt the temperature in the room plummet. Futaba’s expression was utterly blank. She opened her mouth and closed it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba-san…” Maruki trailed off and hesitated. He seemed to consider his words, thumb slowly massaging his knee. “You are undeniably brilliant, Futaba-san,” he said. “I may not have known Wakaba-san very well, but from what I do remember, you resemble her very closely. Not just phenotypically, but in your values and even more so in your thought processes. But I think along the way that intelligence has led you to convince yourself of the dichotomy of logic and emotion, and how you need to temper one in order to legitimize the other. In many ways that can be true. Emotion can blind you to logic; logic can stifle emotion. What years of counseling have taught me, however, is that logic itself can be more fallible than emotion. It twists. It warps under duress. <em>Emotion</em>, however… emotion is always honest. Even if the cause itself is ‘fake’ – drugs or medication, hormones, stress, dementia – what you <em>feel</em> is genuine. It shakes your heart the same way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba’s throat was working as though she were trying to swallow something.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That time I first visited the café… when I first brought my book on cognitive psience… I could see just how uncomfortable you were with a stranger in your space,” Maruki said. “It took all your courage to speak to me, but you forced yourself to do it. You made yourself overcome those fears. I watched you break down the barriers of your own limitations out of love for your mother, and in that moment, seeing that courage – courage I’d never found in my own heart – I knew I would do anything to protect the courage in yours. I didn’t fight you in the metaverse because frankly… I couldn’t. Even to give you the future you wanted.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro’s eyes were glued on Futaba. She hadn’t moved or reacted at all, chest barely rising and falling. “To you, my motives for not using my full strength against you go against logic, because logic dictates that I would want to win no matter the cost,” Maruki said. “My answers don’t make sense to you, because technically had I chosen to hurt you, I could have made you forget that it happened at all. But not everything comes down to something that can be codified. The simple answer is that I didn’t attack you because I couldn’t. My emotions had already exacted a promise from me. So while it may not make sense to you – logically, numerically, quantitatively – my answer still stands. I didn’t want to bring any further pain to your door. To summarize: I didn’t win because I was too selfish to win. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro watched Maruki inhale and let it out slowly, shakily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m truly sorry, Futaba-san,” Maruki said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba was deathly silent for a very long time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro began to stand but Futaba was faster. She abruptly slid from the desk and stood on two bare wobbly feet, her fists clenching and unclenching. Her eyes were wide as she processed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When she broke to move, it was towards the bed. Hearing her approach, Maruki opened his eyes again and straightened from the wall. His smile was tired but genuine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Futaba’s slap cracked off his cheek like gunfire. “<em>Futaba!</em>” Sojiro lunged forward and dragged her back. She didn’t fight him, pale with rage, spots of color high on her cheeks as she panted like a horse. “I’m sorry,” Sojiro gritted to Maruki, shoveling her back towards the stairs. “Futaba, downstairs. <em>Now.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s all right, Sakura-san.” Maruki was soft. “Let her go.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You d-d-<em>don’t get to decide what hurts me</em>!” Futaba wrestled her way out of Sojiro’s grip and lunged back across the room. Maruki didn’t flinch from her as her anger ballooned into his space. “And you don’t get to decide what protection I need, and you don’t get to decide what I deserve, and <em>you don’t get to decide to kill yourself under my roof </em>when I<em> just got </em>over my Mom doing<em> the exact same thing!</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki looked startled, but only for a moment. “Of course,” he murmured, deflating. He spoke almost to himself. “Naturally you’d have the place electronically surveilled.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You may want to take the easy way out, but I’ve got news for you, buster, <em>you haven’t earned that. </em>You tried to rewrite the entire world and erase everything I worked so hard to achieve on my own. You tried to steal my success story from me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? That I know I chose between my own happiness and my mother’s life?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba, stop,” Sojiro snapped, alarmed. “That’s enough. You’ve made your point.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I hate you.” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She pummeled them away with fists scrappy enough to bruise. “We <em>all</em> loved you and then you pulled that megavillain crap and you <em>still </em>somehow made us feel sorry for you even after all you tried to take from us. And now you’ve got the nerve to throw a tantrum and try to rage-quit because your game file didn’t save your world the way you wanted it? Well<em> guess what. </em>It’s not happening. You’re in my game now. You don’t get to put me or Sojiro through that. <em>Ever again.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I understand,” Maruki said. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Futaba-san. I truly never meant to bring this back to your door.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“That’s <em>not good enough!</em>” Futaba yelled. “You want to make up for what you’ve done, <em>prove </em>it! You don’t just get to up and die in my café because you’re tired. You think I wasn’t tired too? You think there weren’t days where I wanted to lock myself in my room and cry into my pillow because the world is tough and scary and I’m not? Because there were, and I did, and I <em>changed anyway. </em>I made myself go on because I knew I’d hurt the people around me if I didn’t try. You really don’t want to hurt me, <em>stop trying to drop dead in front of me every time you lose a fight!</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Futaba, that’s enough.” Sojiro was firm. He shoveled her towards the landing and this time prevented her about-face. “Go back home. Cool off. <em>I mean it</em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He managed to boot her out the door with her umbrella and her duffel and lock it behind her. Wondering how the hell to navigate the sea of this newest trans-Atlantic fuck-up, he stood at the top of the stairs and ran his hand back through his hair and hoped he hadn’t just unleashed an ancient vengeful wind spirit out into the domesticity of Yongen-Jaya. “She’s grown,” Maruki murmured. His cheek was scarlet; he was back to leaning against the wall by the window, eyes closed again. “I thought she was mighty in the metaverse – turns out it was only a prequel.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She’s her mother’s daughter.” Sojiro made his decision. He crossed the room and sat down, reaching for the towel to soak it. He folded it into a smaller square and passed it along to Maruki, who held it to his cheek without prompting. “I’m not gonna pretend I could follow all that, but I take it you answered whatever questions have been dogging her,” Sojiro said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know.” The laugh that bubbled out of Maruki wasn’t quite a laugh. It hitched in his chest and rattled like static. “I thought it was over before. They continue to surprise me at every turn.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“She meant what she said. She’ll drag you back from hell if she gets half a notion in her head.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you?” Sojiro was frank. “Because I’m not looking to spend another night like last night. You need a psych ward, let’s get you there, but I’m not playing this game of psychological roulette with my daughter on the line over our heads.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki’s expression was nearly obscured by the fabric. He massaged tiredly, unhurriedly, eyes still on the window. “You said something when you were around the bend,” Sojiro said. “Something about Akira not letting go of your hand. That what happened? You tried to give up in there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yes,” Maruki said. Without shame. “I wanted to die.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And he saved you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He pulled me up. I don’t know how much of me was saved.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Enough of you,” Sojiro said. He waited until the swelling had diminished before taking the towel back. He handed back the plate of sliced fruit. “Eat.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki ate mechanically. Sojiro supervised the next dose of meds and made him wash it down with a full glass of water. Afterwards Maruki reached out to fish his glasses from the bed stand, unsteadily arranging them on his face before returning to his careful lean against the wall. “I don’t know if I have the motivation she needs me to have in order to keep going,” Maruki murmured. “I have no forward momentum. Everything that I lived my life for is gone. I can’t even help my patients at this point. I had to sign them all over to another doctor.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then start over. Takemi had lost her practice back when she first moved into Yongen-Jaya.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know if I’m qualified anymore.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Then do something else. Rebuild something different.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki breathed, exhausted and terrible and fathomless against the wall, “<em>With what.</em>”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sojiro made him take down a second glass of water before carrying the tray back down. He stored the leftovers in the refrigerator, washed the dishes, and sat with a crossword puzzle down in the shadows of the bar for a while as the rain roared on his roof.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Maruki hadn’t moved from his spot on the wall when Sojiro returned. Sojiro sat back down and let out his breath, hiked his ankle up over his thigh and leaned back, following Maruki’s gaze out the window for a long time.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He said, “So how good are you at food delivery.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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